African Leopard
The African leopard exhibits great variation in coat colour, depending on location and habitat. Coat colour varies from pale yellow to deep gold or tawny, and sometimes black, and is patterned with black rosettes while the head, lower limbs and belly are spotted with solid black. Male leopards are larger, averaging 60 kg with 91 kg being the maximum weight attained by a male. Females weigh about 35-40 kg on average. The African leopard is sexually dimorphic; males are larger and heavier than females.
Habitat
They inhabit a wide range of habitats within Africa, from mountainous forests to grasslands and savannahs, excluding only extremely sandy desert. It is most at risk in semi-deserts, 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 50 mm and can penetrate areas with less than this amount of rainfall along river courses. It ranges up to 5,700 m, has been sighted on high slopes of the Ruwenzori and Virunga volcanoes, and observed when drinking thermal water 37 °C in the Virunga National Park. it appears to be successful at adapting to altered natural habitat and settled environments in the absence of intense persecution. Leopards are rare in northern Africa.
Diet
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 ungulates are less common. The known prey of leopards ranges from dung beetles to adult elands, which can reach 900 kg. In sub-Saharan Africa, at least 92 prey species have been documented in leopard scat, including rodents, birds, small and large antelopes, hyraxes, hares, and arthropods. Leopards generally focus their hunting activity on locally abundant medium-sized ungulates in the 20-80 kg 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 behaviour for which great strength is required. There have been several observations of leopards hauling carcasses of young giraffes, estimated to weigh up to 125 kg), i.e. 2–3 times the weight of the leopard, up to 5.7 m into trees.
Breeding
There isn’t a set season for mating to occur with the Leopard. However, during the period of time when there is rain and more food they are more likely to do so. The female can go into estrus in cycles that last for about 7 days. During that period of time, she will give off very strong odours. She will also make loud calls to males and they will be driven to find her. The male Leopards go to great lengths and travel long distances to be able to mate. They often have to fight with each other though for the ability to take part in it. The pair often stay with each other for several days. They may even hunt as a team and share the rewards. They will mate several times over the course of those days with each other. The male will rest from his journey to mate and have the strength to go back to his natural environment.
Once mating has been a success the female will carry the young in her body for about 90-100 days. When her cubs arrive they will be born in a den or cave. She can have up to four at a time. They are extremely small at birth but will grow quickly. The survival rate for the young Leopard cubs is about 50%. When she has four of them it can be very hard for her to be able to feed all of them. They will often fight among themselves and the strongest few will survive. If food is extremely scarce there may only be one of the cubs that get any of it. The young cubs will only spend a few weeks in a location. Then their mother will move them again. She does this to prevent the scent of her young from attracting predators. The fact that she has to leave them alone while she hunts for food puts them at risk. She does all she can to keep them safe. She will fight to her own death while moving them should a predator try to get to them. The young Leopards are taught a great deal about hunting and survival by their mother. This begins at just a couple of months old. When they are about three months of age they begin assisting her with hunts. They also wrestle all the time among themselves. These efforts often help to establish a type of hierarchy for them among the sibling group.
Population
According to the IUCN Red List, they are classed as vulnerable but some other subspecies of Leopard are classed as higher on the threat scale. The number of mature individuals are unknown and their population trend is declining.
Threat
Leopards are targets for trophy hunting. If poorly managed, trophy hunting can be detrimental to the population, especially when permits are focused in one geographic area and targeted individuals are in their prime, territorial, reproductively active. Leopard trophy hunting has been reviewed or closed in Namibia, Botswana, and Zambia within the last five years. In the face of changing land-use, prey availability and direct mortality from humans, Leopards have persisted where other large predators have not. Their ability to live within human-dominated landscapes and feed on a variety of prey has given many people the impression that Leopards require little concern, however, recent trends have shown that current threats have substantially reduced Leopard populations throughout West and Central Africa.
Conservation
The Leopard is included in CITES Appendix I. Trade of Leopard skins and products is restricted to 2,560 individuals in 11 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Recently, the practices within the hunting industry have been called into question by wildlife researchers and conservationists. In 2010, the government of Namibia conducted an assessment of trophy hunting in response to calls for an increase in permits amid reports of unethical hunting practices. Zambia placed a moratorium on Leopard and Lion hunting in 2013 due to concerns about the conservation status of the populations. In South Africa, Mozambique and Botswana, researchers have developed regional studies of the hunting quota systems that incorporate measures of trophy quality and regulate the geographic distribution of permits. These quota studies integrate previous hunting data to prescribe the number and distribution of hunting permits with local stakeholder participation. In 2014, sport hunting has been banned altogether in Botswana while South Africa suspended trophy hunting of Leopards for the year in 2016.
Regulating trophy hunting will only address a percentage of Leopard mortality; human-Leopard conflict within livestock and game farming communities is likely the greatest source. In many countries of sub-Saharan Africa, farmers are allowed to kill predators that are considered a threat to life and property with permits distributed retroactively. It is likely that a high percentage of Leopards are killed without reporting and therefore the exact numbers of Leopards killed through actual or perceived conflict are unknown. Generally, efforts to calculate mortality through human-wildlife conflict have been considered unreliable. Since the majority of Leopard range is outside of protected areas, conflict mitigation strategies such as livestock husbandry, compensation/ insurance programmes, alterations in trophy hunting permit distribution and public awareness have all been used to assist farmers and increasing tolerance for living with leopards. Where conflict Leopards have been identified, translocation has been tried often with negative results, however, effective translocation criteria have been developed based on suitable release site characteristics. Namibia and Botswana have promoted wildlife conservation through the devolution of wildlife management and the establishment of benefit-sharing initiatives between photographic tour operators, professional hunters and communities through Conservancies and Wildlife Management Areas. These initiatives were modelled after previous efforts such as CAMPFIRE in Zimbabwe.