Leopard habitat selection

Context

In the Nort-West Province of South Africa, leopards move through a landscape where human activities and land-use changes shape their daily movements. Understanding how these felids select their habitats at different scales is essential to guide conservation strategies in a region where coexistence with local communities and agricultural activities represents a major challenge. Our study tracked several territorial leopards equipped with GPS collars to analyze their habitat preferences at three levels: species distribution, home range placement, and fine-scale daily movements.

FatBear expertise

Our approach combines advanced statistical models with a detailed understanding of leopard behavior. By integrating habitat selection across multiple spatial scales, we developed predictive maps identifying the areas most suitable for leopard presence, while accounting for individual variations and sensitive periods such as denning. The use of step-selection functions also allowed us to analyze habitat choices at the scale of hourly movements, revealing how leopards adjust their behavior depending on the time of day.