Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University
The
CLT have provided a bursary for Masters student Therese Rautenbach
attending NMMU under the supervision of Prof Graeme Kerley and Quinton.
She is currently doing a study on leopard diet in three mountain
regions in the Cape. The Cederberg study has provided a significant
sample size of leopard scats to analyse, while the Gamka project is
currently focussing on collecting as many scats (old or fresh) as
possible to see what leopard diet in this area might be. These will be
compared to diet of leopard in the eastern Cape, and will be a very
useful management tool, enabling one to determine prey preference,
abundance as well as an indication of leopard habitat preference. One
will also note the presence (or absence) of domestic livestock in
leopard diet in these regions where conflict is perceived to result in
massive economic loss. Results of this study will be available at the
end of the year.
University of Stellenbosch
Our leopard conservation genetics project is still well underway under
the supervision of Prof Conrad Matthee of Stellenbosch University. The
CLT have committed to further sponsorship of this invaluable project we
initiated in 2004. A Master’s thesis was published on this in 2006, and
further work by a post-doc student in the Stellenbosch laboratory will
soon provide more in-depth information on the population status of our
diminutive mountain cats.
University of Cape Town
Quinton has
recently been involved in setting up another project through UCT’s EGS
department under his supervision as well as that of Prof Mike Meadows.
This is an Honours project undertaken by Lindsay Patterson, looking at
various digital mapping tools to determine and predict habitat use of
leopard in different mountainous regions in SA. GPS data taken from a
couple of Cederberg leopards will be used to plot the parameters of
preferred routes used by both male and female leopards. Lindsay has
chosen quite a task – how to get into the mind of a leopard...
Willem Titus
Willem has been keeping things going in the Cederberg while Quinton has
been visiting the other projects. He has also gone out to spend 2 weeks
on the Namaqua project to help the guys learn how to set up camera trap
stations and to do some tracking.
