Altogether 86 paired camera stations, placed along jeep tracks and hiking trails, spaced across 2 400 km\u00b2 [from Botvlei in the west to De Hoop vlei in the east] of heavily fragmented fynbos habitat, and what does one find \u2013 well, see for yourself! <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Cape Leopard Trust (CLT) Research team is thrilled to report its large-scale survey of the Overberg \u2013 from August 2021 to January 2022 \u2013 was successfully completed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBy the end of the survey we had amassed just more than 230 000 photos,\u201d said Jeannie Hayward the CLT communication and media manager. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cManually sorting, identifying and tagging all these is a mammoth task, and we are very fortunate to have amazing support from WildID \u2013 a fantastic online machine learning programme that semi-automates the process of identifying and labelling the species in each of these images. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Initial results from the survey indicate good species diversity, with at least 27 native wild mammal species recorded as well as a number of re-introduced and non-native species. The cameras spotted several animals the CLT team was not used to seeing, such as hippo (in the Nuwejaars Wetlands SMA), a Cape dune molerat, fallow deer and a lone vervet monkey (possibly an escaped pet).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAlthough birds regularly show up on our camera traps in regions such as the Cederberg, Boland, Piketberg and Little Karoo, we were quite surprised by the number and variety of different birds recorded in the Overberg \u2013 with at least 15 different feathered species making an appearance on the cameras,\u201d the research report stated. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Encouragingly, the survey also recorded a widespread leopard presence (at 50 of the 86 camera trap stations \u2013 representing 58% of locations). \u201cTogether with an MSc student from the University of Cape Town we are now working to ascertain the leopard population density in the greater Overberg region,\u201d Hayward said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Altogether 86 paired camera stations, placed along jeep tracks and hiking trails, spaced across 2 400 km\u00b2 [from Botvlei in the west to De Hoop vlei in the east] of heavily fragmented fynbos habitat, and what does one find \u2013 well, see for 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