Threats to Leopards & Leopard Conservation

[Lisbeth]

TROPHY HUNTING OF LEOPARDS IN SOUTH AFRICA

BY EMS FOUNDATION - 21ST MAY 2021 - EMS FOUNDATION

PUBLIC STATEMENT
Endangered Species Day 21st May 2021

The EMS Foundation will be making a series of statements, the content of which is in the public’s interest. We are focusing our attention on the conservation of South Africa’s wildlife, especially with regard to the essence of the decision making processes.

LEOPARDS: SACRIFICED ON SOUTH AFRICA’S BLOODY TROPHY HUNTING ALTAR

Exquisitely beautiful and elusive, leopards unsurprisingly form part of South Africa’s so-called iconic ‘Big Five’, yet their current conservation status is a population in persistent decline[1] and, alarmingly, they are extinct in 67% of South Africa[2].

According to peer-reviewed research papers human-mediated leopard mortality is widespread, especially amongst private agricultural and wildlife ranches in South Africa. Climate change, trophy hunting, illegal hunting, killing for skins,’ legal destruction’, revenge killings, by-catch from snares for the bush meat trade and lack of adequate protection from government, are pushing leopards in South Africa to the brink of extinction. Moreover, unreported and illegal killing of wildlife is widespread across southern Africa and therefore also extremely pertinent.

Nonetheless, it appears that the Department of Fisheries, Forestry and Environment (DFFE) is attempting to appease the powerful hunting lobby by steamrolling through a trade and trophy hunting agenda of leopards without adequate scientific evidence.

The EMS Foundation remains deeply concerned about the protection of leopards in South Africa and questions the decision-making processes involved with the of determination of trophy hunting ‘quotas’. For instance, on Monday 16th January 2017 the Department of the Environment confirmed that the zero quota for leopard hunting had been extended for the year. This decision delighted wildlife conservationists because it was based on the review of available scientific information on the status and recovery of the leopard populations in South Africa.[3]

However, less than a month later, on the 8th of February 2017, the Department for the Environment placed a notice in the Government Gazette (No. 40601) entitled Draft Norms and Standards for the Management and Monitoring of the Hunting of Leopard in South Africa for Trophy Hunting Purposes. And in 2018, the Minister allocated a leopard hunting quota as follows: five male leopards in the Limpopo Province and two male leopards in the KwaZulu Natal Province.[4]

On the 18th of June 2019 members of the Wildlife Animal Protection Forum South Africa (WAPFSA) offered a submission to the Minister of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries, Minister Creecy and to CITES with regard to the determination of leopard trophy hunting for 2019. WAPFSA recommended a zero quota and called for the cessation of the issuance of leopard trophy permits based on the available science and the deficiencies of the regulatory environmental and consultative processes that were currently in place in the determination of leopard population viability and the status of the leopard species.[5]

When questioned in the National Assembly on the 28th of August 2020 about whether a quota for leopard trophy hunting had been considered for 2020, Minister Creecy responded that the Scientific Authority considered information relating to the population trends of leopards in South Africa. These trends had, apparently, been carefully monitored over a three-year period. The Scientific Authority (chaired by the South African National Biodiversity Institute – SANBI), she said, had also considered the written submissions. Based upon all the information received, and because there was no hunting quota for 2019, the allocation for 2020 was as follows: eleven male leopards of seven years of age or older.[6]

On the 23rd of February 2021 the EMS Foundation requested information to SANBI in terms of the Promotion of Access to Information Act, 2000 (Act No.2 of 2000) (PAIA). The information the foundation requested included whether the eleven permits for leopard hunting had been issued in 2020 and the foundation requested the information to include how these permits were determined and what specific scientific processes were involved.

On the 18th of March 2021, SANBI responded by suggesting that they should be directed to the Department of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries as they did not have this information. SANBI confirmed in their response that the Scientific Authority provides scientific advice to the Minister for her consideration.

The EMS Foundation also asked SANBI if the 2021 leopard trophy hunting quota had been established and if so, how this was established. SANBI responded that this question should be directed to the Department of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries and that DEFF (now DFFE) is responsible for undertaking any requisite stakeholder processes.

On the 22nd April 2021, the EMS Foundation, thus duly followed process and requested from DFFE, via PAIA, access to all records related to leopard hunting in South Africa in 2020. The DFFE responded to the PAIA on the 13th of May 2021. The Deputy Director General of DFFE stated that this department is not in possession or control of the records relating to leopard hunting in South Africa. Furthermore, the DDG stated that these records are not the responsibility of the department but suggested that these records may be in the possession or under the control of the nine Provincial Conservation Authorities.

The purpose of the PAIA is to ensure that people can exercise their constitutional right of access to information held by the State and other public bodies. This Act was brought about to foster a culture of transparency and accountability in public service and is meant to enable South Africans to fully exercise and protect their rights. However, there seems to be an underlying intention to manipulate PAIA provisions in a bid to undermine its application.[7]

There is a significant lack of information on leopard population numbers in South Africa. Leopards are listed under CITES Appendix 1 and have been since 1975. This means that the commercial trade in leopards is forbidden. The legal international trade is limited to hunting trophies and skins under export quotas.[8]

Biologists who have studied leopards agree that the proposed age of seven years to hunt leopard does not take into account later studies showing high mortality due to infanticide.[9] The levels of infanticide would be higher in areas where the males in their prime are continuously removed by hunters.

Trophy hunters have proven to be particularly poor at ageing and sexing leopards and have also proven to be untrustworthy in terms of declaring if females were shot and have also admitted their willingness to shoot females even if this is illegal. Even moderate levels of hunting have been proven to be detrimental to leopards. Nonetheless, at CITES, South Africa defended the setting of the annual quota for the trophy hunting of leopards at a gob smacking 150 leopards per annum.

The EMS Foundation would like to determine on what scientific basis and data the decisions are being made by the Minister to determine a trophy hunting quota. The so-called scientific authority is vague and unhelpful. We require access to the actual datasets. We would like the opportunity of challenging these scientists with specific research.

Given all of the above, it is frankly incredulous, astounding, bewildering and infuriating that, when it comes to leopards in South Africa, neither SANBI or DFFE are able to provide information they should have at their fingertips – facts, material and evidence that should not only inform their leopard population assessment for 2021 (on which the trophy hunting ‘quota’ is determined) but should also be the basis for their public engagement on this issue. What a tragic absurdity.

[1] Department of Environment Submission to CITES, 2018.

[2] Jacobson AP, Gerngross P, Lemeris Jr. JR, Schoonover RF, Anco C, Breitenmoser-Würsten C, Durant SM, Farhadinia MS, Henschel P, Kamler JF, Laguardia A, Rostro-García S, Stein AB, Dollar L. 2016. Leopard (Panthera pardus) status, distribution, and the research efforts across its range. PeerJ 4:e1974 https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.1974

[3]https://capeleopard.org.za/news-media/a ... a-for-2017

[4] https://www.environment.gov.za/mediarel ... pard_quota

[5] https://wapfsa.org/category/protection-of-leopards/

[6] https://www.environment.gov.za/sites/de ... ations.pdf

[7] https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article ... formation/

[8] https://www.ewt.org.za/wp-content/uploa ... dus_VU.pdf

[9] https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... nfanticide

Original report: https://emsfoundation.org.za/trophy-hun ... th-africa/

[Lisbeth]

Eastern Cape government ordered to reveal secret details of permits to kill leopards


A leopard looks out from a tree at the Mashatu game reserve on 25 July 2010 in Mapungubwe, Botswana. (Photo: Cameron Spencer / Getty Images)

By Ethan van Diemen | 28 Jul 2022

In what is seen as a dual victory for transparency and wildlife conservation, the Eastern Cape High Court on Tuesday ordered the provincial MEC for Environmental Affairs to disclose previously sealed records of all permits issued to trap, kill, hunt or translocate endangered leopards in the Eastern Cape since 2017.
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‘I believe we have lifted the lid on unaccountable government and possibly corruption in so far as how biological resources are handed down to private interests by state agents.”

So said Bool Smuts, director at Landmark Foundation, speaking to Our Burning Planet following a court victory that is being seen as a dual achievement for transparency and wildlife conservation.

On Tuesday, the Eastern Cape High Court in Makhanda ordered the MEC for Environmental Affairs to disclose the department’s records of all applications received and all permits issued to trap, kill, hunt or translocate any leopards in or from the Eastern Cape since 2017.

The judgment has seemingly brought to an end an ongoing legal challenge that has sought to demystify how hitherto secret decisions involving South Africa’s rich biological endowment are made by public servants to benefit private interests.

The court judgment and associated documents, which OBP has seen, lays out the context and history.

Landmark Foundation is a conservation NGO and registered charitable trust that is “committed to establishing effective predator management methods that are ecologically and ethically acceptable, and that support a healthy ecosystem and the conservation of endangered species”. It established the Leopard and Predator Project which “addresses the persecution of predators” in South Africa, with a particular focus on leopards in the Western Cape, Northern Cape and Eastern Cape.

In approaching the courts, the foundation sought an order compelling access to records held by the Eastern Cape’s Department of Economic Development and Environmental Affairs; specifically, all applications received and permits issued from 2017 to December 2019, to trap, kill, hunt or translocate any leopards in or from the province.

Fewer than 400 adult leopards in Eastern Cape
It explains that fewer than 400 adult leopards remain in the Eastern Cape. The declining population numbers, representatives for the foundation argued, are caused by, among other factors, “the loss of habitat, human-caused mortality, continuing persecution and genetic isolation of small populations.

“As top predators, the presence of large carnivores such as leopards in an area has many important ecological consequences, such as the regulation of prey numbers, population control of predators through competition, and maintenance of a functional balance of biodiversity in the local community.

“The presence of leopards is an important indicator of an ecologically healthy environment.”

This small number of leopards is why the animal is listed as a vulnerable species, that is, “an indigenous species facing a high risk of extinction in the wild in the medium-term future”, according to the National Environmental Management: Biodiversity Act 2004 Threatened or Protected Species regulations.

Section 57 of the Biodiversity Act prohibits any person from carrying out a “restricted activity” involving a specimen of a listed threatened or protected species without a permit issued in terms of Chapter 7 of the Act.

Restricted activities in relation to a listed threatened or protected species include hunting, catching, capturing or killing any living specimen, having in possession or exercising physical control over any specimen, and conveying, moving or otherwise translocating any specimen.

‘Secrecy, backroom allegiances’
A statement by the Landmark Foundation says “the Eastern Cape government felt entitled to hand out public goods (leopards) to private interests (farmers and game owners and hunters) and conceal this transference of our public goods to private interests. What is more, they felt they were entitled to do this in secrecy and concealed from public accountability.

“This happened when leopards were removed in ecologically ruinous actions and with backroom allegiances.”

In summation, nobody is allowed to carry out a restricted activity involving a leopard without the necessary permit. It is in this context that the foundation has tried to gain access to the records of who the department has given these permits.

The department, which has fought against revealing these records, based its opposition on the premise that doing so would amount to an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy. They have also suggested that if the location of leopards became public knowledge, this would attract criminal elements.

The judgment
Tuesday’s judgment rubbished these arguments, finding in favour of the Landmark Foundation. Judge Avinash Govindjee said the department “had not discharged the onus of proving that the information is either personal information” or “that its disclosure would be unreasonable”.

The judge said “the application was brought forth by the Foundation for the purposes of obtaining information relevant to the management and conservation of the leopard species. It is accepted that state management in the conservation of threatened and protected species involves a public interest dimension.

“The right of access to information is closely linked to the cultivation of an accountable, responsive and open society and to the realisation of other constitutional rights, including the right to a healthy environment.

“Animal welfare and conservation form part of this right. Access to information is the norm, rather than the exception.”

The judgment continued to explain that applicants for permits seek to perform a restricted activity, and determinations on whether to grant a permit application “may affect the environment significantly”. Accordingly, given the nature of a request to perform a restricted activity and its potential impact on a vulnerable species, the application process “has acquired a social dimension outside the private domain” and it cannot, consequently, be said that a reasonable expectation of privacy exists in relation to such an activity.

The court ordered that the Eastern Cape Department of Economic Development and Environmental Affairs provide the Landmark Foundation with access to “all applications received and all permits issued… to trap, kill, hunt or translocate any leopards in or from the Eastern Cape… from 2017 to 3 December 2019”.

Accountability
Asked what the potential implications of the judgment might be on transparency and conservation, Smuts said: “It is the beginning of holding state officials acting with impunity accountable to be responsible for looking after our environment.”

Asked about the importance of the ruling, Smuts told OBP that “it should be the primary concern of every South African, because there is no economy without a healthy ecology and environment.

“It is everybody’s concern that our ecological resources are conserved because our very lives depend upon it. You can’t survive 10 minutes without clean air and you can’t survive two days without water… and the biodiversity patterns and processes are the ecological web of life that sustains us.

“Yes, on a day-to-day basis it might not be your priority, but to be able to live, you need the basis on which we build our economy. In the long term, without a healthy ecology, you don’t have an economy, you don’t have a job, you don’t have a society that can function. So that’s why it’s important.” OBP/DM

[Lisbeth]

BIG CAT CONSERVATION

Riveted to the spots – passionate love of leopards unites thousands in ‘phenomenal’ citizen science project


'You will never understand the moment when a leopard stares right into your soul. The beautiful Molathlegi graced us with his presence at the Kwa Maritane viewing hide, where he lay, undisturbed, and allowed us to photograph him.' (Photo: Debbie Fendick)

By Angus Begg | 06 Sep 2022

Citizen scientists are pitching in to keep track of the graceful cats in the Pilanesberg National Park after a ‘people’s project’ exploded on social media. One woman describes how a chance encounter changed her life.
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Five leopard cubs were born in Pilanesberg, North West at the start of South Africa’s hard lockdown in March 2020. It was a time when South Africans were for the most part not allowed to leave their homes, when the country’s wildlife had the roads of national parks and game reserves to themselves.

Four are known to have survived to adulthood, a rare achievement in the animal kingdom, according to safari guide and wildlife photographer Debbie Fendick.

“It’s very unusual,” says Fendick, who doubles as an administrative team member of the Pilanesberg Leopard Project.

With lions, hyenas and adult male leopards likely to kill them off as future competitors, she says, leopard cubs have a survival rate of about 30% in the wild.

The Leopard Project was founded in 2015 by Heinrich Neumeyer, a guide and professional wildlife photographer with extensive knowledge of tracking and mapping the movement of leopards since 2009.


The female Kgodisa crosses the road in front of guide Debbie Fendick’s car. Encountering her and her sibling in 2013 changed Fendick’s life. (Photo: Sumari van der Merwe)

Fendick says Neumeyer wanted to create a “people’s project” in which citizens could help to collect data on the park’s leopards.

Keeping track

“Heinrich has an incredible passion and talent for finding leopards. He shares his knowledge with [social media] groups and certainly was the inspiration for my keen interest in leopards,” Fendick says.

Neumeyer, who remembers seeing his “very first leopard in the Pilanesberg National Park way back on my 10th birthday in 1994”, wants the research project to monitor:

• How many leopards roam the Pilanesberg, shedding light on the ratio between predators and prey;

• The number of males, females and cubs;

• The ages of the leopards; and

• Injured leopards, making it easier for park management and ecologists to attend to them if needed.

Phenomenal response

“The response has been phenomenal,” says Neumeyer, adding that the project has almost 8,000 active followers on social media, involved in what he describes as a “very successful and passionate citizen science project”.

He says the initiative grew far bigger than he had imagined it would, swelling the number of visitors to Pilanesberg National Park as people discovered that the park had a significant leopard population.

Read in Daily Maverick: “Twelve southern African speed cats travel 9,000km to bring extinct cheetahs back to life in India”

“Guests to the park now try to find their favourite individuals, which creates additional interest and encourages more frequent return visits,” he says.

Fendick, the third volunteer invited to join the project, had herself been one of those frequent visitors. Her involvement was the result of a chance meeting.

“In 2013 I came around the corner in Pilanesberg and two leopard cubs were playing in the road with their mom.”

She says the experience changed her life.

Passion fulfilled

“I used to take people out because they loved my passion for leopards, and they wanted to drive with me,” she says.

Some of her guests now call her the “crazy leopard lady”, she says.

During that encounter on the road she realised that she wanted her passion to become her future, leading her to complete a field guiding course.

The two cubs, Motsamai and Kgodisa, are now nine years old. They have been observed by Fendick and her Leopard Project colleagues for their whole lives, and the monitoring is contributing to scientific research. She says she has seen Motsamai and Kgodisa raise and lose cubs of their own.


The ancient crater that hosts the Pilanesberg National Park. (Photo: Angus Begg)

Perry Dell, of the Pilanesberg Wildlife Trust, a non-profit organisation that helps the North West Parks Board with a wide range of conservation activities, from anti-poaching to fuel supplies, says the Leopard Project has provided valuable assistance to the park, since the park itself does not conduct research.

“It’s definitely of interest to the public,” says Dell.

“The project helps with keeping track of leopard numbers and knowing which territories they are seen in.”Read in Daily Maverick: “Challenge to leopard hunting quota proof that the DFFE should change its spots”

Neumeyer says keeping a database of the leopards identified in the park adds an additional resource that will help if any of the animals stray out of the park.

Fendick says the most exciting part of the project for her is the passion of its members: “They want to learn and provide us with feedback and data. Following leopards is a serious hobby for some people.”

She says members’ photographs have contributed to the production of an identification booklet containing “all the information gathered over more than 10 years on every leopard, both alive and presumed dead, in the park”.

Protection

Leopards, she says, need protection.

“Absolutely they do. So many leopards are caught in snares and hunted by farmers. We have to always remember we have encroached on their territory, and therefore we are the ones [who] need to practise caution and respect,” she says.

By collating data, the project finds that the “textbook version” is not always entirely correct. Fendick says “some really exciting behavioural observations” have been made.

She cites one male that was often seen by members with his cubs and their mother. “Male leopards usually move on, but this one remained involved, which is important for the survival of the cubs.”

She also says it is a fallacy that leopards are strictly nocturnal. “Some of our most incredible sightings have been in the heat of the day at midday, like the kill we saw last week.”

“I was driving along Tilodi loop and we noticed a few giraffes staring intently at the rocks. If you spend enough time in the bush you know that animal behaviour often gives away the predators we are looking for. The giraffes stared and stared without moving at all. We switched off the car and waited patiently to see what they would reveal. Turned out to be one of our beautiful lockdown babies just hiding behind a rock. I had the privilege of naming her Nandi, meaning “joyful surprise”.’ (Photo: Debbie Fendick)
She says the project’s most public contribution to the survival of the predators is found in its publications, such as the Pilanesberg Leopard Project ID Booklet and calendar sold at the Pilanesberg Wildlife Trust kiosk in Pilanesberg Centre, the proceeds of which go to the trust.

And the support from the park “in allowing the project to exist and continue our efforts is wonderful”.

Of his love for leopards, Neumeyer says: “To me, their beauty trounces that of a lion or a cheetah. Their stealth, power, elusiveness and resilience are all attributes of a very special cat and animal.

“Sightings can be few and far between. Whenever we find [a leopard], we appreciate it more as it is such a rarity to be in their world, even for a couple of seconds.”

Fendick agrees, and heads off to Sabi Sands to guide more guests in search of her spotted lovelies. DM168

[Richprins]