The Cape Leopard Trust (CLT) Boland Project is pleased to announce that Cape Leopards, Popeye (Boland Male / BM17) and Olive (Boland Female / BF14) still frequent the FNB Wines2Whales Mountain Bike (MTB) routes.
“Old Popeye is still the master of the Groenlandberg,” says Jeannie Hayward of the CLT Boland Project. “After four years of monitoring we still spot Popeye quite regularly around Paul Cluver and Oak Valley Wine Estate. After being collared in May 2013, Popeye helped us gain a lot of insight into the movement and territory of the Cape Leopard. The collar has since been remotely dropped, but Popeye is still patrolling the trails of Pofadder and surrounds”.
“Although it has been almost a year since we last spotted Olive, we believe that she is still around,” continues Hayward. “Females are much less bold than males and sometimes go undetected for months. With regards to other mammals, we have been picking up all the regulars including large spotted genet, small grey mongoose, porcupine, grysbok, honey badger and baboon. We will be checking the De Rust cameras shortly and are excited to see what stories the footage will reveal”.
In 2011 the organizers of the FNB W2W MTB Events donated five digital camera traps to the CLT Boland Project. Placing these cameras along the FNB W2W MTB routes gave the Boland Project the opportunity to survey new locations within the study area, not only for leopard activity but also for the presence of other nocturnal and shy mammals. In addition to the digital camera traps, the organizers of the FNB W2W MTB Events also make an annual donation of R15 000.00 to the Project to further this worthy cause.
