# Seven leopards have returned to South Africa’s West Coast after disappearing 170 years ago, with the first confirmed sighting in the West Coast National Park captured on camera last year. General Manager Bool Smuts of the Landmark Foundation, a non-governmental conservation dedicated to human-wildlife conflict management, says the predators were hunted in the mid 1800s but a few survived in mountainous regions. He says natural recolonisation, without translocation, was aided by expanded protected areas and predator tolerance. Smuts believes their return after 170 years is something worth celebrating.
Leopards return to West Coast after 170 years in natural recolonisation