Leopards remain surprisingly widespread across the Western Cape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Moving between those habitats is another matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
New research mapping leopard distribution across the province found that much of the Western Cape may still support the animals. Yet the landscape was generally difficult for leopards to move through, with farms, towns, roads and other human-altered areas separating suitable habitats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Cape Fold Mountain Belt emerged as the most important natural pathway connecting those fragmented spaces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The finding changes the conservation question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Protecting isolated populations inside nature reserves may not be enough. Leopards also need viable routes through the land between them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Published in Landscape Ecology<\/em>, the study combined several types of information collected across different spatial scales.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Researchers used 345 credible interviews conducted across 91 sampling areas to estimate where leopards were likely to occur. They then incorporated 2,554 verified records collected between 2007 and 2022, including sightings, camera-trap images, tracks, scat, carcasses and citizen-science submissions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Questionable records were removed, while reports were checked using details such as locations, dates, photographs and species identification.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The team also analysed GPS information from 25 adult leopards monitored in the Cederberg, Boland Mountain Complex and Little Karoo. Data from another four dispersing males were used to test whether the predicted movement routes resembled the paths leopards actually followed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This allowed the researchers to examine three related questions:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Where are leopards found across the province?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Which areas are most suitable for their home ranges?<\/p>\n\n\n\n And how easily can they move between those areas?<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the broadest scale, the researchers found evidence of widespread leopard space use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Their model produced an average probability of area use of 0.69, while less than 4% of the study region fell below the threshold used to identify places with a very low probability of leopard presence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That does not mean leopards occur evenly across the Western Cape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The models identified strong geographical differences, with rugged terrain playing a particularly important role. Mountainous areas can provide cover, difficult access for people and landscapes in which leopards can move with less disturbance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Protected areas were the largest contributor to predicted habitat suitability at the home-range scale, accounting for about 60% of the model’s explanatory contribution. Within their home ranges, leopards tended to select rugged, vegetated, lower-elevation areas with relatively limited human disturbance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Suitable habitat, however, was not confined to protected land.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That is where the conservation challenge becomes more complicated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n An area may provide enough food, cover and space for a leopard to live.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But if roads, intensive agriculture, urban development or hostile land uses surround it, the animal may struggle to reach other populations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ecologists describe this quality as landscape permeability<\/strong>: the degree to which a landscape allows an animal to move through it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Western Cape’s average permeability score was 0.31 on the researchers’ normalised scale, indicating that movement across much of the province is constrained. By comparison, routes used by four dispersing male leopards passed through areas with an average permeability of about 0.49.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The males were not moving randomly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They tended to follow portions of the landscape that offered moderately easier passage than the province as a whole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Cape Fold Mountain Belt stood out as the principal movement pathway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Its connected mountain ranges function less like isolated habitat islands and more like a long ecological corridor through which leopards may travel between regions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A population does not remain healthy simply because animals survive within separate patches of habitat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Young leopards eventually need to leave their birth areas. Adults require space to establish territories. Movement between populations also allows genetic material to spread across the landscape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If suitable habitats become completely isolated, small populations can become more vulnerable to local decline and reduced genetic diversity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Connectivity therefore supports more than individual movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It helps maintain the long-term viability of the wider population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The new study suggests that conservation planning should prioritise the mountain belt while also protecting important connecting areas outside formal reserves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Much of the land required for leopard movement is privately owned or used for farming and other economic activity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That means conservation cannot rely only on declaring additional protected areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It must also involve the people managing the land between them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The researchers recommend coexistence-focused approaches, including engagement with landowners, incentives for conservation on private property and management that allows for future changes in climate, habitats and animal distribution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This could include protecting natural vegetation along movement routes, limiting further fragmentation in strategically important areas and reducing threats such as wire snares.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Such measures do not require every connecting landscape to become untouched wilderness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They require land to remain sufficiently permeable for wildlife to pass through it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The findings need to be interpreted with care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The research estimates habitat suitability, space use and potential connectivity. It does not provide a complete count of the Western Cape’s leopards, nor does it prove that every predicted corridor is used regularly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some of the underlying GPS records were collected between 2005 and 2014, while verified presence records extended to 2022. Land use may have changed in parts of the province since those observations were recorded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The models also combine data collected in different ways and at different times. Although this gives the researchers far greater geographic coverage, each source has its own limitations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Continued monitoring will therefore be needed to confirm how leopards respond as development, agriculture, climate and human activity change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The detailed location data cannot be released publicly because exposing sensitive leopard positions could create conservation risks. A broader habitat-suitability layer is expected to be shared through South Africa’s Biodiversity GIS platform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Western Cape still contains landscapes capable of supporting one of its last free-roaming large predators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the study shows why distribution alone can be misleading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A species may remain present across a broad area while the links holding that population together become increasingly fragile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Protected areas remain essential.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So do the mountains, farms and multi-use landscapes between them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For Western Cape leopards, the future may depend not only on where they can live, but on whether they can still reach one another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Study Title:<\/strong> Advancing leopard conservation in the Western Cape, South Africa: a holistic landscape modelling approach<\/em> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Leopards remain widely distributed across the Western Cape, but new mapping shows that fragmented landscapes make movement between habitats difficult. The Cape Fold Mountains may provide the most important pathway connecting isolated populations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7240,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[17,29],"class_list":["post-7239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-environment","tag-pined","tag-trending"],"yoast_head":"\nLeopards are present across much of the province<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
A suitable habitat can still be isolated<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Why movement matters<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Conservation cannot stop at reserve boundaries<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The map is a model, not a leopard census<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The spaces between protected areas matter<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Source Information<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Authors:<\/strong> Eugene Greyling, Jessica Comley, Gareth K. H. Mann, Quinton E. Martins, Jeannie Hayward, Anita Wilkinson, Kathryn S. Williams and Alison J. Leslie
Journal:<\/strong> Landscape Ecology<\/em>
Published:<\/strong> 30 May 2026
DOI:<\/strong> 10.1007\/s10980-026-02381-4<\/p>\n\n\n\n