a bunch of wealthy tourists. There were possible sponsors among them, so Quinton had been persuaded by the tour leader to do his ‘song-and-dance routine’. But there was no one in the auditorium, and Mount Cedar’s dinner is served at seven o’clock sharp. Quinton has to be a patient man, content to wait months for the glimpse of a cat. Now we witnessed his less patient side. There was, in fact, smoke coming out of his ears. He’d been specially asked to come as a favour. Dinner would just have to wait, or there’d be hell to pay.
Eventually a group of well-heeled guests sauntered in, chatting and laughing among themselves. There were carefully groomed women and blustery men, loud with bravado and bonhomie. I thought Quinton might lose his temper at their tardiness, but the moment he began his talk, he was charm personified, and the audience soon warmed to him. Elizabeth turned off the lights and images flashed on a screen. He’d done the PowerPoint presentation countless times before, and was completely at ease with his material.
We learnt about how, after three-hundred-and-fifty years of farmer-predator strife, most of the Western Cape’s rich wildlife biodiversity had disappeared. The last big cats, hanging on in a few scraps of wilderness, were all that was left. When Quinton founded the Trust in 2004, an average of eight leopards were being shot in the Cederberg each year. Since 2004, only two had been killed.
He explained that the Cape leopard was an iconic ‘umbrella species’, used as an emblem for research on the entire eco-system and for environmental education. The tools of his trade were simple. Feet on the ground were the most important element, since much of the terrain was inaccessible by vehicle. Infrared-camera traps were vital, as they provided permanent eyes and could be used to identify individual leopards, their distinctive pattern of spots being the equivalent of a human fingerprint – no two exactly the same.
Quinton showed maps depicting the ranges of his cats. He’d found that in the mountains, male leopard ranges were up to two-hundred square kilometres, compared to the Karoo, where ranges were as high as 1 200 square kilometres, or the densely populated Kruger National Park, where they were as low as twenty-five square kilometres. He’d recorded how ranges changed over time as cats were forced out or died. His leopards traverse up to thirty kilometres a day, patrolling their territory, hunting and looking for mates. Only one male at a time holds any given patch, although you might find females and young cats overlapping.
Quinton pointed to bunches of dots on his maps, depicting GPS clusters, and explained that these indicated where a leopard had made a kill. By visiting these sites, an accurate picture of their diet had been put together. A pie graph showed a menu comprising forty-four percent klipspringer, thirty-four percent dassie and three percent livestock, with the balance made up of a wide range of creatures in very small quantities.
He stressed that his research had proved that farm animals comprised a negligible part of the leopards’ diet. The key to removing them completely from the menu was livestock management. He spoke about his project in Namaqualand, where eco-ranger herders with Anatolian sheep dogs were doing pioneering work with sheep flocks. Employing herders and dogs and placing livestock in kraals at night almost entirely eradicated predation. It simply required a mind shift by farmers.
Quinton then showed photographs from his infrared-camera traps. They depicted the wide biodiversity of the berg, from porcupine and honey badger to caracal and baboon. Next came an image of two frolicking leopard cubs, which had the audience ahh-ing. ‘These little beauties were born on 7 January 2011,’ said Quinton. ‘Both have survived and dispersed into the mountains.’
When his talk ended, the audience had plenty of questions.
How much did mountain leopards weigh?
Answer: males were about thirty-five kilograms, which was half that of their cousins elsewhere in Africa.
Were Cape mountain leopards a subspecies in their own right?
Answer: probably not, although more research had to be done. However, one feature that distinguished them from other leopards was a black rather than a pink nose.
How many Cape leopards were left?
Answer: about thirty adults in the Cederberg and possibly four-hundred in total. It was a terribly fragile population. A bad spate of a disease such as feline Aids could wipe them all out.
Were there any left on Table Mountain or the Cape Peninsula?
Answer: no, although many hikers had reported otherwise. Quinton would have to be shown photographs to be convinced. The range around Cape Town had shrunk to unsustainable proportions. ‘You’d find Constantia poodles and Boulders Beach penguins getting nailed if they were still around,’ said Quinton. ‘We must assume that peninsula leopards are extinct.’
The applause was loud and long. The tour leader stood up to thank Quinton, and told his group that the Cape Leopard Trust survived on donations alone. Would they please give generously. As we were packing up, he came to tell us that a number of guests would be dipping into their purses for the cause. Our trip had not been in vain.
‘Fundraising and PR are a huge part of the job,’ said Quinton as we drove back. ‘I’d love to be on my own in the berg, tracking leopards full-time, but it’s just not possible anymore. The Trust is a big organisation with staff and responsibilities. We have projects all over the Cape, investors to keep satisfied, and the interested public needs to be informed about our activities.’
We returned to Matjiesrivier for supper. Around the braai, talk was all about the elusive nature of Cape leopards. Quinton had worked at Londolozi for years, where leopards were spotted on almost every game drive. He’d recently visited Phinda Game Reserve in KwaZulu-Natal to compare notes with researchers using similar trapping methods. Before they’d even finished setting the last in a series of snares, the first one was triggered by an inquisitive leopard. In the Cederberg, you could wait half a year for that.
‘So why on earth do you do it?’ I asked.
‘Part of the mystery is their elusiveness. I’m not generally a patient man—’
‘You can say that again,’ Elizabeth cut in.
‘But I make an exception for leopards. I have to.’
Elizabeth told us about the time they had a television crew staying with them for a month, desperate for a sighting. Quinton stared sheepishly into his beer as his wife recounted the incident. Days dragged by and they had no luck. Finally one of the transmitters was triggered at a cage trap high in the mountains. It took them hours to lug the camera equipment up to the spot. When they got close enough, the crew set up a shot looking down on the hidden trap. With the cameras rolling, Quinton cautiously approached the cage, only to discover that the cat had managed to escape. At that precise moment, his frustration boiled over, and with a roar of rage, he picked up the cage and hurled it over a cliff, cameras rolling all the while. The TV crew got some lovely footage of an enraged man-leopard.
The next day, Lorraine and Garth had to return to the city to attend their grandchildren’s performance in a school concert. Instead of dismantling the three traps and waiting for more volunteers to arrive, I offered to take over the monitoring. This involved checking the frequencies of each trap every couple of hours throughout the day and night. If the pulse doubled from its normal forty beats per minute, a snare had been triggered and I was to summon Quinton pronto. We rigged up an aerial on the roof of my cabin, and led the cable through a window so the receiver could reach my bedside table. That way, I wouldn’t have to get up in the night to check the signal.
‘If the trap is sprung, I’ll go in alone and assess the situation,’
