The Cape Leopard Trust project team in South Africa’s Namaqualand shares a report and photos of capturing the team’s most magnificent leopard photo to date and what happened next – from euphoria to dread and then critical steps forward in the team's efforts to unite farmers in conservation efforts in the Succulent Karoo Hotspot.
The CLT Namaqualand project has been quite something! About as extreme as the weather in the area, it has been through lows and has come through it all and is now on the road to success. It all started with our most magnificent leopard photo to date – that of a beautiful female leopard and her two cubs. We nicknamed her "Rachel."
Our euphoria had scarcely died down when we got the dreaded phone call from a farmer in the area that a leopard cub had been trapped in one of his gin traps and he wanted us to come and handle the situation. The late call meant it would be too dangerous to try to dart the captured animal in the dark. At 2 a.m. the following day, vet, Dr Andre van der Merwe and project manager, Quinton Martins raced up to assist with the operation. As dawn broke, we headed to the site with trepidation. Our greatest fear was that both the mother and cub were each caught in traps.
When we arrived at the scene, the cub was alone – we could not see the mother. We darted the cub, and once tranquilized we approached him carefully still not sure if the mother was around. Day old tracks of the mother indicated she had been there, but had now left him. The cub itself was injured beyond help. His leg had been irreparably damaged by the teeth of a very large gin trap (“tier yster”) which had cut into his flesh, leaving only a centimetre of bone connecting the paw to the rest of the leg. The vet had to euthanize the cub on site.
In a matter of weeks after the incident, reports appeared in several newspapers across the country. A journalist of a local Namaqualand newspaper wrote a particularly one-sided article, portraying the farmers as cruel and heartless. The CLT were not interviewed for this article, however, it had damaged the reputation and integrity of the project in the eyes of the local farmers.
A meeting was held where CLT Trustee, Johan van der Westhuizen came to speak to the farmers. He clearly stated the purpose of the project and the value it has for the area (both for farmers and conservationists), and the meeting ended up being particularly successful. An agreement was reached whereby the farming community would continue working with the CLT team and together an advice/steering committee was formed (three local farmers, a SANParks official, Quinton and Ben-Jon).
One of the farmers in the Kamiesberg region is currently allowing the CLT Namaqualand team to test an alternative predator control system on his farm. This system, as developed by Eddie Steenkamp, aims to deter predators from attacking livestock rather than trying to eradicate them from farmland. The idea is to use livestock collars that have bells and scent blocks to make vulnerable lambs sound and smell unnatural to predators in the area. Thus far we have collared all the lambs on this farm and are currently recording the stock losses incurred. Once the experiment is completed, we hope to make recommendations concerning the system and report on its feasibility as an alternative predator control method.
The bonds between farmers in the Northern Cape and the CLT were further strengthened when Quinton and Ben-Jon attended a meeting held by the Northern Cape Red Meat Production Organization (NCRPO). In this meeting, it was agreed that farmers and conservation groups should work together to find socially acceptable alternative methods to control predators as well as come up with solutions to the human-wildlife conflict in the area.. Furthermore, it was decided that Quinton would represent the CLT on a committee to drive this project. Researchers and members of the RPO would meet to draw up an action plan to find suitable predator control alternatives in five recognized sub-regions in the Northern Cape.
Lastly, our camera traps have been delivering some great leopard photographs over the last month or two. We have now identified who we believe to be the mother of the cub that was caught in the gin trap, as we have several photographs of her moving through her territory. Furthermore, we have found two males within our study area. In the future we hope to be able to estimate the size of the population in Namaqualand and ultimately, using GPS collars, track the movements of these leopards.