RESULTS - Second Spoor Count
Makololo Consession - Hwange National Park
The spoor count team (Nic, Godwin, Byron and Daniel) have now completed the second spoor count under the project, in the south eastern corner of Hwange National Park, covering the Makololo concession areas. The count was conducted during the first two weeks of August and a total of 215 kms of road were counted.
As before the roads used were driven at between 10 and 15km/hr with a minimum of two observers. The spoor of all animals, both predators and prey, were recorded. When leopard spoor was detected, the vehicle was stopped and all team members present examined it for confirmation.
A total of 21 leopard tracks were seen during the count (see map for detail of location of these spoor, black stars indicate location of spoor). The spoor count team could not identify 14 of the spoor in terms of age and sex, given the type of substate (thick Kalahari sands) but identified 4 males, 2 females and 1 cub. However, as with all spoor it is difficult to be absolutely certain that sex and age are correct.
This number of leopard spoor translates to a spoor density of 4.9 spoor/100km driven. It is spoor density, which we will be using to compare areas of different utilisation - in this case the Tsholotsho CAMPFIRE area to the south of the Park and hopefully the Ngamo forest area as well. All three of these areas occur in the same soil and habitat type.
What spoor density cannot tell us at the moment is how many leopards there are in southern Hwange. To give this figure we will need to calibrate a spoor density against a known number of leopard in a smaller subarea of southern Hwange. We are working towards this goal by trying to raise funds for camera traps. These special "traps" take pictures of leopards, and if enough are used in an area we can get a very good idea of how many individual animals we have. This estimate can then be compared with the spoor density to understand the relationship between spoor density and actual number of animals.
But even with spoor densities we can begin to explore whether leopard populations between areas of different utilisation show different characteristics. We will update this site as soon as we have the spoor density from the other spoor count areas.
