The African leopard (''Panthera pardus pardus'') is the
nominate subspecies of the
leopard, native to many countries in
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
. It is widely distributed in most of
sub-Saharan Africa, but the historical range has been
fragmented in the course of
habitat conversion.
Leopards have also been recorded in
North Africa
North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...
as well.
Taxonomy
![Leopard - Institut scientifique de Rabat - Morocco](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f0/Leopard_-_Institut_scientifique_de_Rabat_-_Morocco.jpg)
''Felis pardus'' was the
scientific name used by
Carl Linnaeus
Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his Nobility#Ennoblement, ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné#Blunt, Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalise ...
in the
10th edition of ''Systema Naturae'' in 1758. His description was based on descriptions by earlier naturalists such as
Conrad Gessner
Conrad Gessner (; la, Conradus Gesnerus 26 March 1516 – 13 December 1565) was a Swiss physician, naturalist, bibliographer, and philologist. Born into a poor family in Zürich, Switzerland, his father and teachers quickly realised his tale ...
. He assumed that the leopard occurred in India.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, several naturalists described various leopard skins and skulls from Africa, including:
* ''Felis pardus panthera'' proposed by
Johann Christian Daniel von Schreber in 1778 based on descriptions by earlier naturalists
* ''Felis leopardus'' var. ''melanotica'' by
Albert Günther
Albert Karl Ludwig Gotthilf Günther FRS, also Albert Charles Lewis Gotthilf Günther (3 October 1830 – 1 February 1914), was a German-born British zoologist, ichthyologist, and herpetologist. Günther is ranked the second-most productive re ...
in 1885 from the
Cape of Good Hope,
Southern Africa
Southern Africa is the southernmost subregion of the African continent, south of the Congo and Tanzania. The physical location is the large part of Africa to the south of the extensive Congo River basin. Southern Africa is home to a number o ...
* ''Felis leopardus suahelicus'' by
Oscar Neumann
Oscar Rudolph Neumann (3 September 1867 in Berlin – 17 May 1946 in Chicago) was a German ornithologist and naturalist who explored and collected specimens in Africa. He fled via Cuba and settled in the United States to escape Nazi persecutio ...
in 1900 from the
Tanganyika territory
Tanganyika was a colonial territory in East Africa which was administered by the United Kingdom in various guises from 1916 to 1961. It was initially administered under a military occupation regime. From 20 July 1922, it was formalised into a L ...
* ''Felis leopardus nanopardus'' by
Oldfield Thomas in 1904 from
Italian Somaliland
Italian Somalia ( it, Somalia Italiana; ar, الصومال الإيطالي, Al-Sumal Al-Italiy; so, Dhulka Talyaaniga ee Soomaalida), was a protectorate and later colony of the Kingdom of Italy in present-day Somalia. Ruled in the 19th centu ...
* ''Felis pardus ruwenzorii'' by
Lorenzo Camerano in 1906 from the
Ruwenzori and
Virunga Mountains
* ''Felis pardus chui'' by
Edmund Heller
Edmund Heller (May 21, 1875 – July 18, 1939) was an American zoologist. He was President of the Association of Zoos & Aquariums for two terms, from 1935-1936 and 1937-1938.
Early life
While at Stanford University, he collected specimens in th ...
in 1913 from
Uganda
}), is a landlocked country in East Africa. The country is bordered to the east by Kenya, to the north by South Sudan, to the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to the south-west by Rwanda, and to the south by Tanzania. The sou ...
* ''Felis pardus iturensis'' by
Joel Asaph Allen
Joel Asaph Allen (July 19, 1838 – August 29, 1921) was an American zoologist, mammalogist, and ornithologist. He became the first president of the American Ornithologists' Union, the first curator of birds and mammals at the American Museum of ...
in 1924 from the
Belgian Congo
The Belgian Congo (french: Congo belge, ; nl, Belgisch-Congo) was a Belgian colony in Central Africa from 1908 until independence in 1960. The former colony adopted its present name, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), in 1964.
Colo ...
* ''Felis pardus reichenowi'' by
Ángel Cabrera
Ángel Cabrera (; born 12 September 1969) is an Argentine professional golfer who has played on both the European Tour and PGA Tour. He is known affectionately as ''"El Pato"'' in Spanish ''("The Duck")'' for his waddling gait. He is a two-tim ...
in 1927 from
Cameroon
Cameroon (; french: Cameroun, ff, Kamerun), officially the Republic of Cameroon (french: République du Cameroun, links=no), is a country in west-central Africa. It is bordered by Nigeria to the west and north; Chad to the northeast; the C ...
* ''Panthera pardus adusta'' by
Reginald Innes Pocock in 1927 from the
Ethiopian Highlands
The Ethiopian Highlands is a rugged mass of mountains in Ethiopia in Northeast Africa. It forms the largest continuous area of its elevation in the continent, with little of its surface falling below , while the summits reach heights of up to . ...
*
''Panthera pardus adersi'' by Pocock in 1932 from
Unguja Island,
Zanzibar
Zanzibar (; ; ) is an insular semi-autonomous province which united with Tanganyika in 1964 to form the United Republic of Tanzania. It is an archipelago in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of the mainland, and consists of many small islan ...
* ''Panthera pardus brockmani'' by Pocock in 1932 from
Somaliland[
Results of genetic analyses indicate that all African leopard populations are generally closely related and represent only one subspecies, namely ''P. p. pardus''.] However, results of an analysis of molecular variance Analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA), is a statistical model for the molecular algorithm in a single species, typically biology, biological. The name and model are inspired by ANOVA. The method was developed by Laurent Excoffier, Peter Smouse and ...
and the pairwise fixation index
The fixation index (FST) is a measure of population differentiation due to genetic structure. It is frequently estimated from genetic polymorphism data, such as single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) or microsatellites. Developed as a special case o ...
of African leopard museum specimens shows differences in the ND-5 locus spanning five major haplogroup
A haplotype is a group of alleles in an organism that are inherited together from a single parent, and a haplogroup (haploid from the el, ἁπλοῦς, ''haploûs'', "onefold, simple" and en, group) is a group of similar haplotypes that share ...
s, namely in Central–Southern Africa, Southern Africa, West Africa, coastal West–Central Africa, and Central–East Africa. In some cases, fixation indices showed higher diversity than for the Arabian leopard
The Arabian leopard (''Panthera pardus nimr'') is a leopard subspecies native to the Arabian Peninsula. It has been listed as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List since 1996 as fewer than 200 wild individuals were estimated to be alive i ...
and ''Panthera pardus tulliana
''Panthera pardus tulliana'' is a leopard subspecies native to the Iranian Plateau and surrounding areas encompassing Turkey, the Caucasus, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia, Iraq, Iran, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and possibly Pakistan. Since 2016, ...
'' in Asia
Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an are ...
.
Characteristics
The African leopard exhibits great variation in coat color, depending on location and habitat. Coat colour varies from pale yellow to deep gold or tawny, and sometimes black
Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white ...
, and is patterned with black rosettes while the head, lower limbs and belly are spotted with solid black. Male leopards are larger, averaging with being the maximum weight attained by a male. Females weigh about on average.
The African leopard is sexually dimorphic
Sexual dimorphism is the condition where the sexes of the same animal and/or plant species exhibit different morphological characteristics, particularly characteristics not directly involved in reproduction. The condition occurs in most ani ...
; males are larger and heavier than females. Between 1996 and 2000, 11 adult leopards were radio-collared on Namibia
Namibia (, ), officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and ea ...
n farmlands. Males weighed only, and females . The heaviest known leopard weighed about , and was recorded in South West Africa
South West Africa ( af, Suidwes-Afrika; german: Südwestafrika; nl, Zuidwest-Afrika) was a territory under South African administration from 1915 to 1990, after which it became modern-day Namibia. It bordered Angola (Portuguese colony before 1 ...
.
According to Alfred Edward Pease
Sir Alfred Edward Pease, 2nd Baronet (29 June 1857 – 27 April 1939), was a British Liberal Party politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1885 and 1902 and who became a pioneer settler of British East Africa, now Kenya.
Early life
...
, black leopards in North Africa were similar in size to lions
The lion (''Panthera leo'') is a large cat of the genus '' Panthera'' native to Africa and India. It has a muscular, broad-chested body; short, rounded head; round ears; and a hairy tuft at the end of its tail. It is sexually dimorphic; adult ...
. An Algeria
)
, image_map = Algeria (centered orthographic projection).svg
, map_caption =
, image_map2 =
, capital = Algiers
, coordinates =
, largest_city = capital
, relig ...
n leopard killed in 1913 was reported to have measured approximately , before being skinned.
Leopards inhabiting the mountains of the Cape Province
The Province of the Cape of Good Hope ( af, Provinsie Kaap die Goeie Hoop), commonly referred to as the Cape Province ( af, Kaapprovinsie) and colloquially as The Cape ( af, Die Kaap), was a province in the Union of South Africa and subsequen ...
s appear smaller and less heavy than leopards further north. Leopards in Somalia and Ethiopia are also said to be smaller.
The skull of a West Africa
West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, M ...
n leopard specimen measured in basal length, and in breadth, and weighed . To compare, that of an Indian leopard
The Indian leopard (''Panthera pardus fusca'') is a leopard subspecies widely distributed on the Indian subcontinent. The species ''Panthera pardus'' is listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List because populations have declined following habita ...
measured in basal length, and in breadth, and weighed .
Distribution and habitat
The African leopards inhabited a wide range of habitats within Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
, from mountainous forests to grasslands and savannahs, excluding only extremely sandy desert. It is most at risk in areas of semi-desert, where scarce resources often result in conflict with nomadic farmers and their livestock.
It used to occur in most of sub-Saharan Africa, occupying both rainforest and arid desert habitats. It lived in all habitats with annual rainfall above , and can penetrate areas with less than this amount of rainfall along river courses. It ranges up to , has been sighted on high slopes of the Ruwenzori and Virunga volcanoes, and observed when drinking thermal water in the Virunga National Park
, iucn_category = II
, iucn_ref =
, location = Democratic Republic of the Congo
, map = Democratic Republic of the Congo
, relief = 1
, coordinates =
, area =
, established =
, nearest_city = Goma
, photo =Virunga National Park-107997 ...
.
It appears to be successful at adapting to altered natural habitat and settled environments in the absence of intense persecution. It has often been recorded close to major cities. But already in the 1980s, it has become rare throughout much of West Africa
West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, M ...
. Now, it remains patchily distributed within historical limits. During surveys in 2013, it was recorded in Gbarpolu County
Gbarpolu is a county in the northern portion of Liberia. One of 15 counties that comprise the first-level of administrative division in the nation, it has six districts. Bopulu serves as the capital with the area of the county measuring . As ...
and Bong County in the Upper Guinean forests
The Upper Guinean forests is a tropical seasonal forest region of West Africa. The Upper Guinean forests extend from Guinea and Sierra Leone in the west through Liberia, Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana to Togo in the east, and a few hundred kilometers inl ...
of Liberia.
Leopards are rare in North Africa. A relict population persists in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco
Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria t ...
, in forest and mountain steppe in elevations of , where the climate is temperate to cold.
In 2014, a leopard was killed in the Elba Protected Area
Gabal Elba ( ar, جَبَل علْبَة ' , ), or Elba Mountain, is a peak and, in general, includes the associated mountainous area in the Halaib Triangle of Northeast Africa. Despite being claimed by both Egypt and Sudan, the area is currentl ...
in southeastern Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...
. This was the first sighting of a leopard in the country since the 1950s.
In 2016, a leopard was recorded for the first time in a semi-arid area of Yechilay in northern Ethiopia
Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...
.
Behavior and ecology
In Kruger National Park, male leopards and female leopards with cubs were more active at night than solitary females. The highest rates of daytime activity were recorded for leopards using thorn thickets during the wet season, when impala also used them. Leopards are generally most active between sunset and sunrise, and kill more prey
Predation is a biological interaction where one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation (which usually do not kill ...
at this time.
Diet and hunting
The leopard has an exceptional ability to adapt to changes in prey availability, and has a very broad diet. It takes small prey where large ungulate
Ungulates ( ) are members of the diverse clade Ungulata which primarily consists of large mammals with hooves. These include odd-toed ungulates such as horses, rhinoceroses, and tapirs; and even-toed ungulates such as cattle, pigs, giraffes, ...
s are less common. The known prey of leopards ranges from dung beetle
Dung beetles are beetles that feed on feces. Some species of dung beetles can bury dung 250 times their own mass in one night.
Many dung beetles, known as ''rollers'', roll dung into round balls, which are used as a food source or breeding cha ...
s to adult elands, which can reach . In sub-Saharan Africa, at least 92 prey species have been documented in leopard scat, including rodent
Rodents (from Latin , 'to gnaw') are mammals of the order Rodentia (), which are characterized by a single pair of continuously growing incisors in each of the upper and lower jaws. About 40% of all mammal species are rodents. They are n ...
s, bird
Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweig ...
s, small and large antelopes, hyraxes, hares, and arthropod
Arthropods (, (gen. ποδός)) are invertebrate animals with an exoskeleton, a segmented body, and paired jointed appendages. Arthropods form the phylum Arthropoda. They are distinguished by their jointed limbs and cuticle made of chiti ...
s. Leopards generally focus their hunting activity on locally abundant medium-sized ungulates in the range, while opportunistically taking other prey. Average intervals between ungulate kills range from seven to 12–13 days.
Leopards often hide large kills in trees, a behavior for which great strength is required. There have been several observations of leopards hauling carcasses of young giraffes, estimated to weigh up to , i.e. 2–3 times the weight of the leopard, up to into trees.
In Serengeti National Park
The Serengeti National Park is a large national park in northern Tanzania that stretches over . It is located entirely in eastern Mara Region and north east portion of Simiyu Region and contains over of virgin savanna. The park was established in ...
, leopards were radio-collared for the first time in the early 1970s. Their hunting at night was difficult to watch; the best time for observing them was after dawn. Of their 64 daytime hunts, only three were successful. In this woodland area, they preyed mostly on impalas, both adult and young, and caught some Thomson's gazelle
Thomson's gazelle (''Eudorcas thomsonii'') is one of the best known species of gazelles. It is named after explorer Joseph Thomson and is sometimes referred to as a "tommie". It is considered by some to be a subspecies of the red-fronted gazell ...
s in the dry season. Occasionally, they successfully hunted warthog
''Phacochoerus'' is a genus in the family Suidae, commonly known as warthogs (pronounced ''wart-hog''). They are pigs who live in open and semi-open habitats, even in quite arid regions, in sub-Saharan Africa. The two species were formerly co ...
s, dik-dik
A dik-dik is the name for any of four species of small antelope in the genus ''Madoqua'' that live in the bushlands of eastern and southern Africa.
Dik-diks stand about at the shoulder, are long, weigh and can live for up to 10 years. Dik- ...
s, reedbuck
Reedbuck is a common name for Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it ...
s, duikers, steenboks, blue wildebeest
The blue wildebeest (''Connochaetes taurinus''), also called the common wildebeest, white-bearded gnu or brindled gnu, is a large antelope and one of the two species of wildebeest. It is placed in the genus '' Connochaetes'' and family Bovidae, a ...
and topi
''Damaliscus lunatus jimela'' is a subspecies of topi, and is usually just called a topi. It is a highly social and fast type of antelope found in the savannas, semi-deserts, and floodplains of sub-Saharan Africa.
Names
The word ''tope'' o ...
calves, jackal
Jackals are medium-sized canids native to Africa and Eurasia. While the word "jackal" has historically been used for many canines of the subtribe canina, in modern use it most commonly refers to three species: the closely related black-backed ...
s, Cape hare
The Cape hare (''Lepus capensis''), also called the brown hare and the desert hare, is a hare native to Africa and Arabia extending into India.
Taxonomy
The Cape hare was one of the many mammal species originally described by Carl Linnaeus ...
s, guineafowl
Guineafowl (; sometimes called "pet speckled hens" or "original fowl") are birds of the family Numididae in the order Galliformes. They are endemic to Africa and rank among the oldest of the gallinaceous birds. Phylogenetically, they branched ...
and starling
Starlings are small to medium-sized passerine birds in the family Sturnidae. The Sturnidae are named for the genus '' Sturnus'', which in turn comes from the Latin word for starling, ''sturnus''. Many Asian species, particularly the larger ones, ...
s. They were less successful in hunting plains zebra
The plains zebra (''Equus quagga'', formerly ''Equus burchellii''), also known as the common zebra, is the most common and geographically widespread species of zebra. Its range is fragmented, but spans much of southern and eastern Africa south o ...
s, Coke's hartebeest
Coke's hartebeest (''Alcelaphus buselaphus cokii'') or ''Kongoni'' is a large migratory antelope that is native to Kenya and Tanzania.
It can breed with Lelwel hartebeest to produce a hybrid known as the Kenya Highland hartebeest (''Alcelaphus ...
s, giraffes, mongoose
A mongoose is a small terrestrial carnivorous mammal belonging to the family Herpestidae. This family is currently split into two subfamilies, the Herpestinae and the Mungotinae. The Herpestinae comprises 23 living species that are native to so ...
s, genets, hyraxes and small birds. Scavenging from the carcasses of large animals made up a small proportion of their food. In the tropical rainforest
Tropical rainforests are rainforests that occur in areas of tropical rainforest climate in which there is no dry season – all months have an average precipitation of at least 60 mm – and may also be referred to as ''lowland equa ...
s of Central Africa
Central Africa is a subregion of the African continent comprising various countries according to different definitions. Angola, Burundi, the Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo ...
, their diet consists of duikers and primate
Primates are a diverse order of mammals. They are divided into the strepsirrhines, which include the lemurs, galagos, and lorisids, and the haplorhines, which include the tarsiers and the simians ( monkeys and apes, the latter including ...
s. Some individual leopards have shown a strong preference for pangolins and porcupines.
In North Africa, the leopard preys on Barbary macaques (''Macaca sylvanus'').
Analysis of leopard scat in Taï National Park
Taï National Park () is a national park in Côte d'Ivoire that contains one of the last areas of primary rainforest in West Africa. It was inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 1982 due to the diversity of its flora and fauna. Five mammal sp ...
revealed that primate
Primates are a diverse order of mammals. They are divided into the strepsirrhines, which include the lemurs, galagos, and lorisids, and the haplorhines, which include the tarsiers and the simians ( monkeys and apes, the latter including ...
s are primary leopard prey during the day.
In Gabon's Lope National Park, the most important prey species was found to be the red river hog
The red river hog (''Potamochoerus porcus'') or bushpig (a named also used for the ''Potamochoerus larvatus''), is a wild member of the pig family living in Africa, with most of its distribution in the Guinean and Congolian forests. It is rarely ...
(''Potamochoerus porcus''). African buffaloes (''Syncerus caffer'') and cane rat
The genus ''Thryonomys'', also known as the cane rats or grasscutters, is a genus of rodent found throughout Africa south of the Sahara, the only members of the family Thryonomyidae. They are eaten in some African countries and are a pest species ...
s (''Thryonomys swinderianus''), comprised 13% each of the consumed biomass.
In the Central African Republic's Dzanga-Sangha Complex of Protected Areas
The Dzanga-Sangha Complex of Protected Areas (DSPAC) (originally: Dzanga-Sangha Project) is a protected area in the extreme southwestern Central African Republic. The dense forest block, created in 1990, measures . It consists of the Dzanga-Sangha ...
, a leopard reportedly attacked and pursued a large western lowland gorilla
The western lowland gorilla (''Gorilla gorilla gorilla'') is one of two Critically Endangered subspecies of the western gorilla (''Gorilla gorilla'') that lives in montane, primary and secondary forest and lowland swampland in central Afri ...
, but did not catch it. Gorilla parts found in leopard scat indicates that the leopard either scavenged on gorilla remains or killed it. African leopards were observed preying on adult eastern gorilla
The eastern gorilla (''Gorilla beringei'') is a critically endangered species of the genus ''Gorilla'' and the largest living primate. At present, the species is subdivided into two subspecies. There are 3,800 eastern lowland gorillas or Graue ...
s in the Kisoro
Kisoro is a town in the Western Region of Uganda. It is the chief town of Kisoro District and the site of the district headquarters.
Location
Kisoro is approximately , by road, west of Kabale, the largest city in the Kigezi sub-region. This is ...
area near Uganda's borders with Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (french: République démocratique du Congo (RDC), colloquially "La RDC" ), informally Congo-Kinshasa, DR Congo, the DRC, the DROC, or the Congo, and formerly and also colloquially Zaire, is a country in ...
.
Threats
Throughout Africa, the major threats to leopards are habitat conversion and intense persecution, especially in retribution for real and perceived livestock loss.
The Upper Guinean forests in Liberia are considered a biodiversity hotspot
A biodiversity hotspot is a biogeographic region with significant levels of biodiversity that is threatened by human habitation. Norman Myers wrote about the concept in two articles in ''The Environmentalist'' in 1988 and 1990, after which the c ...
, but have already been fragmented into two blocks. Large tracts are affected by commercial logging and mining
Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the economic ...
activities, and are converted for agricultural use including large-scale oil palm
''Elaeis'' () is a genus of palms containing two species, called oil palms. They are used in commercial agriculture in the production of palm oil. The African oil palm '' Elaeis guineensis'' (the species name ''guineensis'' referring to its c ...
plantation
A plantation is an agricultural estate, generally centered on a plantation house, meant for farming that specializes in cash crops, usually mainly planted with a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. The ...
s in concessions obtained by a foreign company.[
The impact of ]trophy hunting
Trophy hunting is a form of hunting for sport in which parts of the hunted wild animals are kept and displayed as trophies. The animal being targeted, known as the " game", is typically a mature male specimen from a popular species of collectab ...
on populations is unclear, but may have impacts at the demographic and population level, especially when females are shot. In Tanzania
Tanzania (; ), officially the United Republic of Tanzania ( sw, Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania), is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It borders Uganda to the north; Kenya to the northeast; Comoro Islands ...
, only males are allowed to be hunted, but females comprised 28.6% of 77 trophies shot between 1995 and 1998. Removing an excessively high number of males may produce a cascade of deleterious effects on the population. Although male leopards provide no parental care to cubs, the presence of the sire allows females to raise cubs with a reduced risk of infanticide by other males. There are few reliable observations of infanticide in leopards, but new males entering the population are likely to kill existing cubs.
Analysis of leopard scats and camera trap
A camera trap is a camera that is automatically triggered by a change in some activity in its vicinity, like presence of an animal or a human being. It is typically equipped with a motion sensor – usually a passive infrared (PIR) senso ...
ping surveys in contiguous forest landscapes in the Congo Basin revealed a high dietary niche overlap and an exploitative competition between leopards and bushmeat hunters. With increasing proximity to settlements and concomitant human hunting pressure, leopards exploit smaller prey and occur at considerably reduced population densities. In the presence of intensive bushmeat hunting surrounding human settlements, leopards appear entirely absent.
Transhumant
Transhumance is a type of pastoralism or nomadism, a seasonal movement of livestock between fixed summer and winter pastures. In montane regions (''vertical transhumance''), it implies movement between higher pastures in summer and lower val ...
pastoralists from the border area between Sudan and the Central African Republic take their livestock to the Chinko
Chinko, also known as Chinko Nature Reserve and the Chinko Project Area, is a protected area in the Central African Republic. The nonprofit conservation organization African Parks began managing Chinko in partnership with the government of the Ce ...
area. They are accompanied by armed merchants who engage in poaching large herbivores, sale of bushmeat and trading leopard skins in Am Dafok
Am Dafok is a village in the Vakaga prefecture of Central African Republic (CAR). The town sits on the CAR side of the border with Sudan; on the Sudanese side of the border is the state of South Darfur. According to the 2003 census Am Dafok has a ...
. Surveys in the area revealed that the leopard population decreased from 97 individuals in 2012 to 50 individuals in 2017. Rangers confiscated large amounts of poison in the camps of livestock herders, who admitted that they use it for poisoning predators.
Conservation
The leopard is listed in CITES Appendix I
CITES (shorter name for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, also known as the Washington Convention) is a multilateral treaty to protect endangered plants and animals from the threats of intern ...
. Hunting is banned in Zambia and Botswana, and was suspended in South Africa for 2016.[
Leopard populations are present in several ]protected areas
Protected areas or conservation areas are locations which receive protection because of their recognized natural, ecological or cultural values. There are several kinds of protected areas, which vary by level of protection depending on the ena ...
, including:
*Taï National Park
*Etosha National Park
*Virunga National Park
*Kruger National Park
See also
* Leopard subspecies
* Chinese leopard
* Zanzibar leopard
References
External links
Species portrait African leopard; IUCN/SSC Cat Specialist Group
Leopards .:. wild-cat.org — Information about research and conservation of leopards
The Cape Leopard Trust, South Africa
Safarinow.com: ''African Leopard » Panthera pardus » 'Luiperd
Image of a leopard from the Central African forests of Gabon
Predation on a child
at Queen Elizabeth National Park
Queen Elizabeth National Park is a national park in Uganda.
Location
Queen Elizabeth National Park (QENP) is in the Western Region of Uganda, spanning the districts of Kasese, Kamwenge, Rubirizi, and Rukungiri. The park is approximately by ...
, Uganda
{{Taxonbar, from=Q39153
African leopard
The African leopard (''Panthera pardus pardus'') is the nominate subspecies of the leopard, native to many countries in Africa. It is widely distributed in most of sub-Saharan Africa, but the historical range has been fragmented in the course of ...
African leopard
The African leopard (''Panthera pardus pardus'') is the nominate subspecies of the leopard, native to many countries in Africa. It is widely distributed in most of sub-Saharan Africa, but the historical range has been fragmented in the course of ...
Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus
Mammals of Sub-Saharan Africa