Feeding habitat selection by hunting leopards Panthera pardus in a woodland savanna:: prey catchability versus abundance

We used 44 months of radiotelemetry data to investigate the selection of feeding habitats by leopards in Phinda Private Game Reserve, South Africa. We assessed whether leopards hunted in certain habitats disproportionately to their availability and we investigated the factors influencing selection of feeding habitats. We also compared the number of kills and relative success rates of observed hunts in different vegetation types with available prey biomass and the degree of cover within each habitat. Leopards preferred hunting in habitats where prey was easier to catch rather than where prey was more abundant. However, in contrast to expectations, the apparent 'catchability' of prey was not proportional to the amount of cover provided by each habitat type. Instead, the probability of a kill occurring was greater in areas with intermediate cover levels, and these habitat types were favoured by leopards for hunting. There was no significant difference in the success rates of observed hunts in different habitats, suggesting that reduced detectability of prey in denser vegetation was the principal factor governing the decreased occurrence of kills there. Kleptoparasitism was relatively uncommon at Phinda, and there was no significant difference in the number of kills lost to other predators, or the likelihood of a carcass being hoisted in different vegetation types. Our results suggest that leopards are not 'supergeneralists' as widely portrayed and, at least in their choice of hunting habitat, show a degree of specialization that is previously undocumented. We suggest this is likely to influence local population densities and resilience to threats, and we discuss the need for fine-scale understanding of the species' ecological requirements in planning for its conservation. (c) 2007 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.