Ok, I’ll write something then! When I first saw the leopard trapped in the cage, I didn’t believe my eyes. He looked calm and was just sitting there in the cage looking at me. I got so excited that I started running. If you asked me why I was running, I would politely ask you [...]

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Sunday November 9th marked the day of capturing the first leopard in my career. The event was too beautiful to mar with heavy words. Here is a full account of what happened that day in pictures.

Removing the leopard from the trap requires a lot of strength (70 kg cat = an X-cat)

…and team work

…and an [...]

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30 minutes after baiting the leopard traps, and having been reassured that they would be safe from lions, we got a call from Matthew Harding (Head guide). Steve Faulconbridge (Conservation officer) had seen two lionesses get in to the last cage and get trapped!
I didn’t believe what I heard. How can two lionesses - each [...]

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The next day (October 31), John Varty (JV), Andy Coetzee, Francois Botha, Hendri and I went out to bait the cages.
JV is famous for his work with big cats and his tiger project down in the Karoo. Andy has more than twenty years of experience working with wildlife and has also been in the army. [...]

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Day 1 (October 30th)
At 07:00, Johan Malan of the Game Capture Unit from South African National Parks Board (SANParks), together with three assistants, brought four cage traps to the Singita Concession. The cage traps would be used to capture two leopards, a male and a female, for collaring. Thomas Ramabulana, the section ranger from this [...]

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In the last blog I spoke about animals crossing the border in to Mozambique. Sometimes they don’t come back!!
On Friday October 24th I went in to Mozambique together with Francois and Erin and ended up on the border with the Kruger National Park. About 80 metres from the fence we spotted a lioness that lay [...]

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During the week of October 20th we’ll add the second aspect of the leopard research. The first two of the twelve leopards will be captured and collared. The other ten will subsequently be collared, depending on the rate of success with fund raising. The type of collar that we’ll use is the GSM or cell [...]

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It is a struggle to capture leopard pictures at this point. We are heading towards the end of the dry season and somehow animal movements have been altered. I cannot say this with confidence because I am currently sampling the southern part of the concession, which is a rugged terrain and has a limited number [...]

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In the last three weeks I was away at the AWF Biennial Meeting held in Nairobi, Kenya. Before I left I thought it would be prudent to leave cameras in the field so they can do the job while I was away. Upon my return I learned there were runaway fires from Mozambique.
I got even [...]

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Towards the end of August I visited other AWF’s large carnivore projects. The idea was that I could learn from other well established projects and see how different/similar land-use practices between East Africa and South Africa are. The projects include the lion project in the Maasai Steppe Heartland (Tanzania) and the wild dog project in [...]

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