Estimating leopard density across the highly modified human-dominated landscape of the Western Cape, South Africa
Date
2021Author
Devens, Carolyn H
Hayward, Matt W
McManus, Jeannine S
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Apex predators play a critical role in maintaining
the health of ecosystems but are highly susceptible to habitat
degradation and loss caused by land-use changes, and to
anthropogenic mortality. The leopard Panthera pardus is
the last free-roaming large carnivore in the Western
Cape province, South Africa. During –, we carried
out a camera-trap survey across three regions covering
c. , km of the Western Cape. Our survey comprised
camera sites sampling nearly , camera-trap nights,
resulting in the identification of individuals. We used two
spatially explicit capture–recapture methods (R programmes
secr and SPACECAP) to provide a comprehensive density
analysis capable of incorporating environmental and anthropogenic factors.