Home range and movements of male leopards in the Cedarberg Wilderness Area, Cape Province

Three adult male leopards Panthera pardus in the Cedarberg Wilderness Area were fitted with radio collars and their movements were plotted for 12-13 months. Home-range sizes were calculated as 40, 44 and 69 km2, with varying amounts of overlap. The directional shift in arithmetic mean 'activity centres' suggested that the oldest leopard was displaced from his home range by one of the younger males. Five periods of continuous tracking for 22-51 h indicated that the leopards were mostly diurnal, with activity peaks in the late morning and late afternoon or early evening. There was no evidence to support the view, widely held by farmers that leopards move down to lower altitudes in winter. The movement patterns and densities estimated from home-range sizes have important implications for the conservation of leopards in the wilderness area.