Honda SA is not new to supporting conservation. Last year they made a significant contribution to Birdlife SA - view article. Now it is time for the leopards to benefit!

Fieldwork in remote areas like the Cederberg take a massive toll on vehicle longevity, while fuel and maintenance costs on rugged off-road 4x4 vehicles is one of our biggest expenses on the project. 

The sponsorship of a new Honda TRX 500cc 4x4 quad-bike with a value of R82,000 for the Cederberg leopard and caracal research has been a major bonus. Quinton Martins has seen how fantastic these vehicles are after using them on this research trip capturing mountain lions in the USA recently.

He says: “...they are light on fuel, are quiet, have incredible off-road capabilities and are cheap to maintain. Furthermore, their low weight and awesome 4x4 drive-train make it ideal for use in the Cederberg. This is not a racing machine, but a practical working vehicle with a large carrying capacity for equipment”. Cape Nature have been excited to see this move away from heavy fuel-sapping vehicles and are willing to allow the CLT to test the efficacy of these vehicles on their properties carefully monitoring its impacts versus the use of conventional 4x4’s.

The quad will only be used on existing tracks and primarily used to monitor trap sites, camera traps and leopard and caracal kill sites. We are thrilled to have such a prestigious brand known for its reliability and ruggedness join our team of project sponsors.