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To our great excitement of looking through hundreds of baboon photographs, we happened on this slender young leopard – only to discover that this youngster has not yet been captured by our cameras! That brings the total number of leopards we have in the Gouritz corridor to 7!

This leopard, nicknamed “Doc” after the owners of the property where the camera was placed, was “seen” slinking around the side of the Rooiberg mountain.

We hope to capture “Doc” on one of our other strategically places cameras so that we can have a better idea of the home range size for leopards in this region!

Cliffhanger - In an epic rescue effort yesterday, conservation and veterinary staff rallied to save a gin-trapped leopard in the Hantam Mountains near Calvinia.

Cape Leopard Trust (CLT) project manager, Quinton Martins, was contacted by Northern Cape Conservation Assistant Director Inspection Services Leon Muller on Monday evening to assist them. Having worked closely with  Cape Nature's Jaco van DeVenter and vet Dr Andre van der Merwe for 5 years, Quinton called them up to assist in what sounded like an impossible mission - a leopard caught in a gin-trap, on a cliff on the top of the Hantam Mountains. To make matters even worse - the trap anchor had been dislodged making it extremely dangerous to approach this wounded animal.

"Paul passed away in November 2006. He was a staunch Cape Leopard Trust  supporter, influencing many others to do the same. His family, including his  mom all got involved in one way or another and I feel privileged to have  known him. Apart from this, he knew what was important to a man living in  the mountains alone. On one occasion, Paul, his wife and a number of  relatives ( a convoy in fact) came to visit the project in winter 2005.

Our first camera trap photographs from one camera station in the Kamiesberg-Garies district of Namaqualand have yet to reveal signs of leopard, however, this small-spotted genet posed for the occasion.

It's still early days, and Ben-Jon Dreyer and Gail Potgieter are hard at work setting up cameras in this vast area. The only camera results reveal signs of honey badger, klipspringer and this genet.

CLT Namaqualand Project.

F10 or "Spot"- the adult female leopard adopted by the Motamedia group in the UK finally has her leopard identikit. One week ago, Quinton & Liz were out tracking the male M10, when we found fresh tracks of this very elusive female who was adopted last year.

A grant of US$ 110 000 has been given to the Cape Leopard Trust to set up a new leopard project in Namaqualand. This substantial amount of funding has come from the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF) and Conservation International (CI).

The project will be run by Ben-Jon Dreyer, a very enthusiastic young conservationist. He will be assisted on a rotational basis by community field workers trained by the Biota group, as well as by a BSc Honours graduate, Gail Potgieter from Pietermaritzburg. Gail has volunteered her services to the CLT for the entire year in an effort to gain some work experience before registering for a Masters degree in Zoology.

Fiona Pamplin joined the Gouritz project in January to gain some field experience in working in cat conservation. She recently completed her BSc (Hons) in Zoology from the University of Leeds in the UK. She has a passion for felid conservation and hopes to manage a project such as this someday. She has been a great help with all aspects of the project especially with her background in fundraising and marketing.

We wish Fiona well on her future travels and the best of luck in finding work in the cat conservation field. Fiona’s contact email address is: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

With the continual support of the Bateleurs, we have saved an enormous amount of time and resources in order to track our very elusive leopards in the Cederberg. Our most recent flight, on the 27th February, was exceptionally productive. We were able to get GPS downloads and track Amber, Oom Arrie, M11 and Trompie.

Uitkyk Pass in the Cederberg is one of the only places one can get cell phone reception in these mountains – thankfully...but that’s another story.

Within this 50m2 area, sitting on a rock looking out over the beautiful valley I received a message on my phone from the Three Cities Group saying they had a “little” contribution to make to our project and will Quinton go to Durban to collect a cheque.

Douglas Eason Lederle :  10.7.1971 – 20.2.2008

“Some people tread lightly on the earth, whilst others leave a huge footprint.”

Douglas was a supporter of the CLT right from the inception of the project. Our first fundraising event saw him bid for an auction item way out of his price range – to the horror of his wife Wilmien - I think. I met him when doing my rounds collecting auction money from the previous night’s function, then learning of his passion for nature.