Tracking collars provide insight into elusive cats
THE wearable revolution is not only keeping humans fit, it is also helping scientists understand what drives leopards to kill.
Just as smart watches help humans work out how much energy they burn during exercise, a new study used GPS tracking collars fitted with accelerometers to count the calories wild leopards used as they went about their daily business.
The study, conducted by researchers from the University of California, placed hi-tech wildlife tracking collars on five leopards they trapped in Kenya.
“What’s neat about this new technology is that we get these incredible windows into their lives. Even though they are very elusive, we can understand what they are doing,” said the team leader in the study, associate professor Chris Wilmers.
Conservationists in South Africa believe the technology could provide insight into local leopard populations and help protect them.
The trackers were placed on the animals for two months, and getting a peek into these usually shy creatures’ lives surprised the team.
“I was amazed to see how secretive they actually are, like for instance when they would kill goats in these little villages, they would sneak in there in the middle of the night, kill the goat and then, as fast as they could with a goat in their mouth, get out of there,” said Wilmers.
What the researchers found was that male leopards use up about 26% of their daily caloric intake patrolling their territories. A female with a one-year-old cub spent only 8% of her calories on parenting.
“Energetics is the ultimate currency for an animal’s survival,” said Wilmers. “To survive, an animal needs to balance the calories it’s expending with the calories it’s taking in. If it wants to reproduce, it has to run an energetic surplus.”
By understanding how leopards balance their caloric needs, Wilmers believes they could work out what influences their drive to kill.
“They might kill more prey, bigger prey, or go after more desirable prey in more dangerous places – closer to humans, for example.”
By understanding where these cats hunt, the researchers believe they will be able to work out where leopards will hunt and what level of risk they are willing to take.
The next phase for the team is to study more large cats and to compare how they use energy on the landscape.