THE FIRST RESULTS OF THE LEOPARD SURVEY AT UKUWELA

We are very excited to reveal the results from our first leopard survey at our Greater Ukuwela Nature Reserve since announcing the launch of this project! These big cats need protection as leopards are now extirpated in 67% of South Africa. The Greater Ukuwela Nature Reserve is proud to be able to home some of these beautiful animals and the results from our survey will help us, alongside other leopard conservation groups, protect these creatures. Learn about this year’s survey results in our blog post below!

A beautiful male leopard with a wildebeest carcass, photographed on our DSLR Camera Trap donated by our friends at the fStop Foundation.

This survey is the first of an annual leopard camera trap survey to be carried out on the Greater Ukuwela Nature Reserve (GUNR). This report follows our previous blog which you can find here: LEOPARD SURVEY LAUNCHED AT UKUWELA!

Greg Canning setting up the Browning Spec Ops Trail Camera Trap.

Leopards have been listed as Vulnerable to extinction since 2016 which makes the data collected from this project critical to protecting their species. Currently, lions and cheetahs are not yet easily able to cross the corridor into the GUNR as fences block their path. This makes leopards the apex predator on the reserve - playing a key role in the health of the reserve’s ecosystem. Leading the study is Wild Tomorrow’s General Manager, Greg Canning, and his report explains the purpose, procedure, and findings of the survey. 

The importance of this project is to identify threats and to understand the status of the leopard population on the reserve. These annual results will be used to inform conservation policy and the management of leopards and other species, indispensable for our conservation work. 

Thanks to our generous partners, the fStop Foundation, we were donated 20 Browning Spec Ops Trail Cameras to capture and help identify the leopards. These camera traps were set up for six weeks at a time, with 10 trap sites on the Ukuwela section and 10 trap sites on the Mfuleni section of our GUNR. The cameras were deployed in high-use areas, such as along roads and near animal paths, where the leopard population tends to cross by. Measures to ensure clear images from the camera traps included the use of paired cameras to obtain images of both sides of the individual (which helps with the identification) and the removal of vegetation in front of the cameras.

The leopards captured in the images were then identified using African Carnivore Wildbook, a technology that uses machine learning algorithms and artificial intelligence to detect individuals and identify them against a database of images of previously identified individuals. The leopards were then manually identified and, where possible, the gender of the individual was also determined. The findings from the survey are an exciting first record of the leopard population and movement on and around the reserve!

Five individual leopards were identified from 199 leopard captures, 173 on the Ukuwela section and 26 on the Mfuleni section of the GUNR. 

Of the five identified on the Ukuwela section of the reserve; one adult male and two adult females were identified, along with two juveniles (gender undetermined).

On the Mfuleni section, although only one individual was captured on the cameras (and was identified as the same adult male on Ukuwela), additional individuals have been reported. As Greg explains in the report, it is not unusual for there to be an absence of these cats for a period as they are wide-ranging and territorial. The report found the distance moved by the leopards between the capture sites varied between 761.1m and 1795.2m, with a mean of 1206.8m. 

The survey was able to confirm individual leopards moving between GUNR and our neighbouring reserve, Phinda Private Game Reserve. This is not unexpected due to the necessity of these big cats being able to move freely between widespread areas. This also underlines how crucial collaboration between adjoining protected areas is for the conservation of these incredible cats!

In addition to learning more about the leopard population at GUNR, the camera traps are also able to document other species on the reserve and allow us to record cryptic and nocturnal species that are not regularly encountered! 

We look forward to sharing the results from the next year’s leopard survey with you - stay tuned!