Thought I would post this as well, regarding Advice by Safari-Lawyer which is very true? although "where they are" can be interpreted in many ways. As far as actual numbers of Leopard are concerned.
1.) Leopards are territorial, in that both males and females defend territories against conspesifics of the same sex, (Hamilton 76'; Bertram 82')with a number of fights between territorial males resulting from accidental encounters, and in some cases even delideliberate interception, it has been proven though that fights only develop after normal avoidence behaviour has failed to prevent these encounters.
I a study in the Stellenbosch mountains, Cape province (Norton and Lawson 81') found home ranges to be 149 and 188 square miles for a male and female cat respectively which is in the same order as average ranges for Leopard in the Kalahari Gembuck park as found by Botma and Le Riche (1989)
On the other hand a Study done on 3 male Adult Leopard in South Africa's Waterberg Region as well as the Cederberg area in the Cape, ranges were found to be 11, 15 and 17 square miles respectively (Norton and Henley 87') (Strauss and Van Rensburg 99') with varying amounts of overlap at both sites....
Smith in 77' Gave home ranges to be roughly 5 and 8.3 square miles for Matobo Hills National park, Zimbabwe indeed a high concentration but then again the latter being prime Leopard country and 99% habitable.
2.)Point is, Size of home range and population density may very well depend on type of terrain and availability of prey,.. which in SA as long as we keep terrain in mind, should be very good, once again keeping in mind that the less human activity you have, the better the movement will be as well, large hilly or mountainous properties, with rivines, dense cover and rocky out crops and caves are almost a must.
Now if we were to consider an average hunting area out-side of South Africa? and keep in mind I am referring to an average block of? let's say 300 000 acres we would be looking at an area of roughly 468.75 square miles!!, (640 acres to a square mile and topography plays a role as well here), and once again assuming that all the terrain would be suitable Leopard habitat, we could potentially be looking at a population of 30 Leopard males/ females (working on an average of 15.4 square miles per cat) with overlapping home ranges.
Now we need to remember that ,,,,, the math that I am doing has allot of variables woking against but also for it, one of which is prey availability, some free roaming or Wild areas might not have great avaiability, due to various factors, including some socio economical issues in certain Southern African countries to mention but one.
Another factor to keep in mind is how well can you really cover or rather how effective can one bait an area of 468 square miles? I say it is virtually impossible? Due to the fact that, we tend to bait the same trees year after year, especially once a Leopard has been taken from that specific tree or trees..... As it has been proven on countless occasions that another male will take over that specific home range of the last.
Other factors not to be forgotten are the cost of baits, fuel and time to your disposal to check all, and building a blind as well as the lion population in an area. In short there is no way that you could effectively hunt those 30 Leopard in their totality, you might be able to effectively hunt 25% of them, which out of Leopard hunting experience, I very much doubt, but with a major effort as every hunt should be that could potentially provide you with you access to 7.75 Leopard.
Now let's say we are hunting an area of 40 000 acres in South Africa full of game and reasonable hunting pressure, we would then be looking at an area of 62, 5 square miles of suitable Leopard habitat in the right or prime area, potentially we could then have access to, 4.5 Leopard? Overlapping, not that much different from above (on large properties).
Now I will make this very bold statement, that the amount of land to be covered on both different hunts is not much different especially when taking all the variables listed as above into consideration.
I would like to make this very clear, and that is that I am not trying to put down Leopard hunting outside of South Africa nor am I stating that S.A is a better experience or a better Leopard hunting destination, for one, I truly love hunting Wilderness areas, I am simply stating that there is not that much difference over the broad spectrum, and that one can by no means write off hunting Leopard on Large properties in South Africa. We have good Leopard outfits and we have some really big Leopard.
Point is simple hunting with an outfitter or PH that understands Leopard hunting is a very important key to your hunts success, knowing that you will have pre baiting, is just as important, arriving in camp and only then starting to get baits is simply not good enough, the ideal would be to have a week or two of pre baiting done so that once you (the Leopard hunter) arrive in Camp you have some activity and if need be you can settle into a blind from the word get go.
Many hunters have toyed with the idea of Leopard hunting and quite simply put many have paid the price and have had to return to hunt again, it is the kind of hunt that, time spent in blind=larger chance for success, there is no time to sit in camp on a 14 day hunt to wait for a cat to hit the bait.... (just my opinion)
I truly believe that SA is a good Leopard destination and can hold its own against any other Southern African Country.
My very best always.