Limpopo Valley Carnivores

Category: Leopards | Date: May 05 2009 | By: limpopocarnivores

A leopard seen at night seemed to be limping and on closer inspection had severely atrophied muscles on it’s hindquarters. It seemed to be moving, but with some degree of difficulty. We sent photographs to a vet who suspected it was caused by trauma, such as being hit by a car, that had damaged it’s nerves serving the hindquarters, so the muscles were simply wasting away. We found him by the tar road, so this certainly seems like a possibility. We put bait out to try to see if he could be helped by any veterinary attention, but sadly we did not see him again, and a few days later his distinctive tracks stopped appearing. While the area he was in is little used by lions, it is heavily used by Spotted Hyeanas, and we suspect that he may have been too slow to escape an encounter with them.

The fences between Mapungubwe National Park (at the point on the map where Zimbabwe, South Africa and Botswana meet) and De Beers Venetia Limpopo Nature Reserve are due to be removed soon, which will hopefully help solve the problem, as animals often get trapped between the two fences, and panic when they see cars coming and run blindly, making them susceptible to being hit. With the removal of the fences will also come the arrival of speed bumps to slow the traffic, so we sincerely hope that this threat to our wildlife will be removed. It will not come a moment too soon!