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Camera Traps... and Beyond!

  • 10/08/08
  • Nakedi

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 phone collar.

For starts, we will collar a male and a female. The use of collars will help us to

  1. Understand the land use patterns of the leopards relative to the other carnivores, namely lions and hyena;
  2. Get an insight in to how far in to Mozambique these animals go. Of interest will be the nearest communal land, Mapulanguene, which is about 10 km from the fence. We can finally follow up on the relationship between leopards and humans as it happens; and
  3. Document the type of prey that will be taken during that period; also relative to lions and hyenas.
Nakedi
About the Author

Joining AWF in 2007, Nakedi is the latest addition to AWF's team of species researchers in Africa. Working in the Limpopo region, where he's from, Nakedi's studying the great cats to shape conservation strategies that will benefit communities he's known all his life. Looking at Nakedi's focus areas as a zoologist – Cytogenetics, Molecular Biology, and Geometric Morphometrics – it's easy to see he is serious about conservation. Leopards as a species especially interested him because they are both powerful and elusive – making it a challenge to study and protect them.

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