Evidence of a High Density Population of Harvested Leopards in a Montane Environment

Abstract

Populations of large carnivores can persist in mountainous environments following extensive land use change and the conversion of suitable habitat for agriculture and human habitation in lower lying areas of their range. The significance of these populations is poorly understood, however, and little attention has focussed on why certain mountainous areas can hold high densities of large carnivores and what the conservation implications of such populations might be. Here we use the leopard (Panthera pardus) population in the western Soutpansberg Mountains, South Africa, as a model system and show that montane habitats can support high numbers of leopards. Spatially explicit capture-recapture (SECR) analysis recorded the highest density of leopards reported outside of state-protected areas in sub-Saharan Africa. This density represents a temporally high local abundance of leopards and we explore the explanations for this alongside some of the potential conservation implications.

Population dynamics and threats to an apex predator outside protected areas: implications for carnivore management

“…This also contrasts with the relatively high densities reported for the area in 2008 [35]. The density of leopards in the Soutpansberg Mountains has decreased by 44% since 2012 and by 66% since 2008, an extremely rapid decline.…”

“…Leopard density declined linearly across the study ( F 1,22  = 22.04, p  = 0.0001, R 2  = 0.5005; figure 4) with a decline of 44% over approximately 4 years (a reduction of 0.75 leopards per 100 km 2 every year). Incorporating the density estimate available in Chase Grey et al [35] produced a similar model ( F 1,23  = 57.66, p  < 0.0001, R 2  = 0.7149; figure 4), but indicated a 66% decline over a period of just over seven and a half years (0.87 leopards per 100 km 2 per year).

Figure 4.Change in the population density of leopards in the Soutpansberg Mountains between 2008 and 2016.

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“…Individual leopards were identified from photographs using their unique coat pattern, and were allocated into adult male, adult female and sub-adult categories using body size, the appearance of external genitalia, and secondary sexual characteristics such as build and the dewlap [41]. Adults were defined as at least 2 years old, and sub-adults were excluded from density estimation [35].

Figure 1.Locations of the camera traps for the survey of leopard population density and demography in the Soutpansberg Mountains.

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Low leopard populations in protected areas of Maputaland: a consequence of poaching, habitat condition, abundance of prey, and a top predator

“…Protected areas in Maputaland, South Africa, are important for conservation of leopard as they support one of the few remaining large leopard populations, despite rising anthropogenic pressures in South Africa (Balme, Hunter, & Slotow, ; Swanepoel et al., ). Although a few studies in Africa have applied SECR models to leopard density estimates (Chase Grey, Kent, & Hill, ; Swanepoel, Somers, & Dalerum, ), none have accounted for variable effects such as prey abundance, food distribution, co‐occurring species, human disturbance, topography, bioclimate, and other associated threats/factors of interest to quantify spatial distributions of density. We modeled the spatial ecological drivers of leopard density using a Bayesian‐SECR approach to understand the population dynamics of leopards in PAs in Maputaland.…”

First record of African leopard (Panthera pardus pardus L.) in semi‐arid area of Yechilay, northern Ethiopia

“…The major conservation threats to leopards are habitat conversion for agriculture and human retaliation in response to livestock depredation (Balme, Slowtow, & Hunter, ; Henschel et al., ; Ray, Hunter, & Zigouris, ). The persistence of the species across even the most formidable landscapes has been attributed partly to its opportunistic hunting behaviour (Chase Grey, Kent, & Hill, ).…”