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The Cape Leopard Trust has received tremendous support from the ABAX Foundation (previously Polaris Foundation), one of our main sponsors over the past few years. We have greatly appreciated that their Board of Trustees has also been out to visit the project on several occasions, and has experienced firsthand, the work we do.

This year, we have received an unbelievably generous donation of R300,000. These funds will be used to boost the research, conservation and education projects in all four study areas of the project. 2010 has already been particularly exciting with new projects all doing exceptionally well. We are confident that the generous support received from the ABAX Foundation will help us achieve our goals of producing tangible and positive changes in our environment.

Thanks to the Three Cities Group and the Deutche Bank Africa Foundation, we have been able to offer camp sponsorship to a number of groups this year. Some camps have already taken place and others are booked for later in the year. 

An extract from an article written for the new ‘Environment’ Magazine, Edition 3 (more about the magazine in this newsletter):

The most recent camp was for the Grade 4 - 6 children of the Grootkloof Primary School, a small community school in the Cederberg. On Friday afternoon, eleven very excited children and three parents arrived at the new campsite at Matjiesrivier Nature Reserve, especially built by the Cape Leopard Trust, in partnership with Cape Nature, as a base for running these environmental camps. For the first time in their lives they set up tents, then set off to explore the campsite. Having spent the last months of 2009 building and decorating the campsite, it was very gratifying to hear the exclamations of admiration as the children were shown the new bathrooms, with their water-saving bucket showers.

The Cape Leopard Trust has collaborated with six other environmental NGOs (Endangered Wildlife Trust; Wildlands; Wilderness Foundation South Africa; Game Rangers Association of Africa; SANCCOB; and WESSA) to start a new magazine on conservation matters called ‘Environment – people and conservation in Africa’.

This magazine runs quarterly issues, and the third issue is due to come out soon. The participating NGOs each buy copies of the magazine and the costs are also subsidized by advertising.  The magazine is packed with interesting and informative articles on current environmental issues, natural history as well as book reviews and a calendar of environmental events. Each NGO also has pages where it provides an article on its work.

Andy Baxter, Chairman of The Cape Leopard Trust, will be giving a progress report. Now have 4 projects - The Cederberg, Namaqualand, Swartberg-Gamkaberg Corridor and Boland. The Boland project is particularly exciting. Andy will tell you more.

We’re thrilled to share the first couple of leopard pictures from the CLT Boland Project’s Limietberg pilot survey! Even though the first camera we checked presented us with only images of hikers walking by, it was with lots of anticipation that we downloaded the next batch of cards we collected.

We have finally captured a decent photograph of the Matjiesvlei leopard. Although this magnificent male has been caught on film before, it has always been a poor photo or a pic of just a leg, or tail. This has been going on for over a year – now, we have a photograph we can use to create a proper identikit for him. Matjiesvlei, near Calitzdorp, is an awesome area and it has been a privilege for us to work here. Being part of the CLT Gouritz project area, we will begin with the collaring and GPS monitoring of the leopards in this region in May.

We would like to thank all project sponsors for their patience and understanding - allowing us time to get to know you.

We will keep everyone up to date with the collaring project. Fingers crossed!

Best wishes
Aneri and Gareth

On the weekend of 16-18 April 2010, the Land Cruiser Club of southern Africa (LCCSA) and the Cape Leopard Trust (CLT) got together as part of the introduction to the CLT’s Boland Project. We, Anita Meyer and Jeannie Hayward, the co-ordinators of the Boland project, joined a group of LCCSA members at the Tweede Tol campsite in Bain’s Kloof for a relaxing camping weekend. The aim of the weekend was to introduce the LCCSA members to the work of the CLT and to build interest and support for the new Boland project.

The group of volunteers - Pride of Table Mountain - who take children from Cape Town townships on excursions up Table Mountain, were privileged to take part in a Cape Leopard Trust Environmental Camp (22 - 24 January 2010) sponsored by The Three Cities Group. Some of these young adults have been volunteering every second weekend for years with Pride. It was a great pleasure, as the Cape Leopard Trust, to run a camp programme in the Cederberg for this particular group. The programme aimed at deepening their knowledge and observation of the local environment and giving them new ideas and subject matter to bring to their voluntary work.

The Cape Leopard Trust has recently welcomed two new members on board. Jeannie Hayward and Anita Meyer will be the two researchers heading up the new CLT project – a leopard population study in the Boland Mountains. Their study area will include the entire Boland Mountain chain, stretching from the Groot Winterhoek Mountains in the north, all the way down to Kogelberg in the south.