Cape Leopard Trust Survey Reveals Spotted Cats Roaming Boland in Numbers

Photo Credit: Cape Leopard Trus

The Cape Leopard Trust returned to the Boland mountains after five years. Their recent large-scale camera trap survey has confirmed that the big cats and biodiversity of the landscape are going strong.

Western Cape, South Africa (27 November 2025) – For five months, Cape Leopard Trust (CLT) field teams worked their way through the Boland Mountain Complex, sometimes hiking on foot for 20km at a time, setting up and checking cameras from Bainskloof in the north all the way down to the Kogelberg coast in the south.

It’s a massive stretch of wilderness crossing four CapeNature and two City of Cape Town Nature Reserves, two other state-owned properties, as well as 29 private properties surrounding the Protected Areas.

One part of the good news that has emerged from the survey is that leopards have shown up at nearly three-quarters of all camera sites.

“The survey has collected a total of 647 leopard images, and leopards were photographed at 72% of the camera trap stations over the five-month survey period. Using the pattern recognition software of Argus Wild AI and observer confirmation by eye, these photos are now being inspected to individually identify leopards. So far, we have ID’d 38 different cats, with 22 males, 11 females and 5 of unknown sex. At least two of the females also had cubs.” shares the CLT.

So far, the team has identified 38 different leopards, including several females with cubs. And some of these cats are long-time residents. One of them, BF15, better known as Stella, has been photographed in the Simonsberg region since 2010.

“This indicates that individual leopards remain in the same area for a relatively long period – an encouraging result – and it underscores the value of citizen scientists contributing their monitoring records to the CLT.”

CLT will still crunch the numbers to compare this year’s leopard density with previous surveys, but the early signs point to an active population.

Leopards weren’t the only ones posing for their close-up.

Early counts show 22 wild mammal species roaming a 2,500 km2 landscape – Cape fox, bat-eared fox, African striped weasel, striped polecat and grey rhebuck were all spotted. Several bird species also stopped for a snap, including spotted eagle-owl, Cape rockjumper and the Cape turtle dove.

The team endured a fair number of challenges in this year’s survey. Flood damage wiped out access routes, which forced long hikes with heavy gear. And, frustratingly, 16 cameras were stolen from deep in the mountains.

“These cameras were all located deep within the mountains and the thefts are a result of trespassing and illegal activity – hunting with dogs, setting traps and snares, and harvesting of various flora within the nature reserves. The loss of these camera traps is obviously a massive financial burden to the CLT, but even more frustrating is the loss of data from these sites where we were meant to be monitoring leopard presence. The drivers of camera theft raise concern for leopards and biodiversity in the area, as they may reflect growing human pressures and illegal activities within the landscape.” shares the CLT.

On the other hand, one of the most uplifting threads of the survey was the education the team was able to share with hundreds of learners from local schools over 42 environmental education lessons.

“To complement this work, the CLT Research and Conservation Field Officer joined lessons to showcase photos from local camera traps and inspire learners with his personal experiences of what it is like to be a wildlife researcher working in their area.”

The Boland Mountain Complex is one of CLT’s long-term monitoring sites. Regular surveys are conducted to gain a better understanding of the movements and a general population count of leopards.

Check out the top cameos from the Boland survey below, and linked here.