Friday evening after we all arrived at the chalet, we had dinner and then we discussed the strategy for the next day, which was Saturday 19 June.
The research team from Ingwe Leopard project brought all their equipment with them which included 9 camera traps, GPS devices, track printing materials etc.
The first thing that we planned to do early Saturday morning, was to be out in the veld as soon as there is enough sun light to recognise tracks and to focus on areas where leopards and other predators are the most likely to occur. While scouting the habitat, we also had to identify the locations where the camera traps could be deployed during the Saturday afternoon.
Early Saturday morning the team was up and ready, and by 06h00 we were out in the veld. That early in winter, the bushveld is still quite chilly, but every-one was very excited so the cold didn't really mattered.
Within 2 km we spotted the first predator tracks, red jackal or as they are locally known, black backed jackal. This was great news, but about 1km further down the road we spotted nice fresh tracks and it looked like the ones we came to find, leopard tracks! Bingo! to find leopard tracks withing the first half an hour of the inception of such a study was really exiting. We couldn't believe our luck because no-one really expected to find fresh signs of leopard that soon.
Now the tracks had to be recorded.- First we took photos of the tracks.
- Then we measured the tracks.
- We also recorded the GPS data of the location where we found the tracks.
- If it is very good quality tracks, we may well decided to make track prints.
Andrew and Elandí busy measuring and photographing the tracks →
These were excellent tracks and it was decided to lift the tracks by making gypsum imprints.
These imprints are required to build a profile of the animal to ensure that we can accurately compare other tracks that we may find with this track and determine if it was the same animal's or a different individuals tracks.
← the actual leopard tracks that we found.
It takes a while to lift the tracks so we spend the next hour at this location.
The next photos show members of the research team lifting the tracks.
← Andrew busy mixing the gypsum before pouring it into the mold which is placed around the track.
Andrew and Elandí completed the one track and are busy making a print of another foot →
Track prints are usually made of the animal's hind feet and preferably prints of both hind feet are required.
The track print is an inverse of the track, and actually represents a copy of the animal's foot. The track/spoor is actually the mold, that is used to cast a print of the animal's foot.
Did you know, that a leopard's tracks are unique and that an individual can be identified by its tracks?
This is how the track print looks after the gypsum hardened and it was removed from the mold →
Collecting these track prints will assist us in building an identikit of this leopard. It will also assist us in identifying the tracks of the same animal if we find it at other locations on the reserve. It will enable us to determine the number of individuals present on the reserve and not to account for the same animal multiple times.
This was really an unexpected find and a tremendous motivating factor for the research team.
Come back tomorrow to find out what happened next...
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