---
title: "SA doesn’t know how many leopards it has. Trophy hunting quotas are set"
description: "South Africans have until 4 October to comment on a national plan for one of the country’s most elusive predators. Leopard estimates range from a mere couple of thousand to more than 23,000 individuals."
type: "NewsArticle"
publisher: "Daily Maverick"
site: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za"
section: "Maverick Earth"
author: "Tiara Walters"
author_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/author/tiarawalters/"
canonical_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2026-10-02-sa-doesnt-know-how-many-leopards-it-has-trophy-hunting-quotas-are-set/"
published: "2026-10-02T19:16:48"
lang: "en-ZA"
word_count: 1436
---

# SA doesn’t know how many leopards it has. Trophy hunting quotas are set

> South Africans have until 4 October to comment on a national plan for one of the country’s most elusive predators. Leopard estimates range from a mere couple of thousand to more than 23,000 individuals.

By Tiara Walters · Published 2 October 2026, 21:16 SAST

## Key points
- South Africa’s draft leopard strategy and action plan confront population estimates ranging from just 2,185 to 23,400 animals.
- With leopards losing nearly 70% of their range, experts clash over trophy hunting, quotas and how much uncertainty is acceptable when lives are at stake.
- Conservationists support better habitat protection, monitoring and conflict prevention – but warn that a quota is not an implementation plan.
- The public have until 4 October to comment on a strategy whose success will depend on funding, private and communal landowners, and how leopards are valued in relation to their economic use.

## Content

The scale of the gap is stunning. Estimates cited in responses to Daily Maverick questions on the [draft National Leopard Strategy and Action Plan](https://www.dffe.gov.za/sites/default/files/legislations/nemba_draftleopardconservationstrategy_actionplan_g55299gon7877.pdf) suggest an uncertainty of more than 21,000 animals. The draft follows two recent White Papers, the [draft National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan to 2035](https://www.dffe.gov.za/sites/default/files/legislations/nemba_nbsap20262035_g55141gon7773.pdf) and a high-level panel.

Dr Michael ’t Sas-Rolfes, a research fellow at Stellenbosch University’s African Wildlife Economy Institute, puts the problem plainly.

“We don’t really know how many leopards still survive in South Africa; estimates vary by an order of magnitude: 2,185 to 23,400 individuals,” he told Daily Maverick.

This is what the [gazetted document admits](https://www.dffe.gov.za/sites/default/files/legislations/nemba_draftleopardconservationstrategy_actionplan_g55299gon7877.pdf). It also says that this country is at a “critical juncture in leopard conservation”. The species has suffered “substantial range loss” across nearly 70% of land south of the Limpopo and Orange rivers.

Michele Pickover, the executive director of the EMS Foundation, says [leopard trophy export quotas](https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2026-09-03-trophy-hunting-quotas-civil-society-objected-but-did-anyone-in-government-listen-1/?dm_campaign=inform&dm_medium=card-link&dm_position=1&dm_source=blocks-category&utm_source=chatgpt.com) for 2026 and 2027 have been set even though the draft document is still open for public comment.

“It is particularly concerning,” Pickover says, noting that the “revision of the leopard non-detriment finding is deferred to a future process”.

She adds: “This creates the appearance that an important policy outcome has been decided.”

South Africa is debating the future of leopard conservation while experts disagree not only about hunting, but about whose interests should carry weight and how many unknowns should be tolerated when these animals are being killed.

The draft document was published on 4 September, with the public given 30 days to make submissions. The government’s proposed national vision is one in which “leopards thrive in living landscapes, support cultural traditions and local livelihoods through inclusive, community-driven conservation”.

This vision reaches beyond formally protected areas, making the attitudes and behaviour of private and communal landowners a decisive factor for a ghost cat in the crosshairs.

For ’t Sas-Rolfes, this reality complicates calls for tighter protection.

“Leopards can threaten the lives and livelihoods of local rural people,” he says, “while being revered by urban people and foreign tourists who don’t experience the day-to-day realities of living with them.”

The disparity in figures yields markedly distinct versions of precaution.

“Radical protectionists will argue that we should pay heed to the lowest possible estimate and apply the precautionary principle to inform decisions about hunting offtake,” he says. “Many private landowners argue that the number is way higher than the lowest estimate and that, by excessively restricting hunting offtake and imposing strongly protective laws on them, we remove their incentive to tolerate these animals that prey on their livestock and/or valuable wild antelope on game ranches.”

![A leopard perches in a tree in South Africa's Kruger National Park, December 10, 2009. (Photo: REUTERS / Mike Hutchings)](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/PYYJ6AWfKckFZI3izJSguGSJqXQ=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/attachments/orphans/ME-Tiara-LeopardStrat1_393654.jpg)

*A leopard perches in a tree in the Kruger National Park in this file photo from 10 December 2009. (Photo: Mike Hutchings/Reuters)*

He says two-thirds of South Africa’s wildlands are privately protected areas and wildlife ranches, making the behaviour of private landowners quite decisive.

“Having spoken to various representatives, many complain that the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment’s (DFFE) approach to setting hunting quotas is excessively cautious, resulting in unnecessary leopard losses from illegal killings,” he says.

“The plan does not decisively address this issue, and I expect it to remain a source of conflict, especially since animal protectionists would prefer to see leopard hunting banned altogether and the NGOs that represent them continue to lobby aggressively for this.”

The “core conservation challenge” is to ensure that “relevant local rural people don’t view \[leopards\] as pests to be eliminated”.

Pickover draws almost the opposite conclusion from the same uncertainty.

“South Africa does not yet have sufficiently robust, current and independently verifiable population and mortality data to justify additional killing of this Vulnerable species,” she says.

Her foundation says it welcomes the draft’s recognition of the big cat’s ecological importance and its emphasis on – among others – habitat connectivity, community inclusion and conflict prevention.

But she objects to a draft policy that treats trophy hunting, lethal control and access to leopard body parts as “negotiable stakeholder trade-offs”.

Such activities, the foundation argues, should first have to satisfy “constitutional, scientific, precautionary and animal wellbeing requirements”.

It wants a “precautionary zero trophy-hunting quota” and opposes an assumed role for trade in body parts.

“Creating legal supply channels without credible demand research, traceability systems, anti-laundering safeguards and demonstrated enforcement capacity could stimulate demand,” she says.

**A quota is not a conservation plan**

Others may worry that any fight over hunting risks obscuring areas where the experts do agree – and one such area is turning policy into practice.

Andrew Muir, the CEO of the Wilderness Foundation, says he was encouraged by the overall policy direction, but cautioned against confusing a strategic document with execution.

“I think we need to understand it for what it is: it is primarily a national strategic framework and action roadmap,” Muir says. “It is not yet the detailed, fully funded implementation programme that will ultimately determine what happens on the ground.”

As he notes, “the strategy itself recognises that the lack of a coordinated and properly resourced implementation plan has been one of the greatest obstacles to effective leopard conservation”.

He welcomes the breadth of the draft.

“The leopard strategy recognises that conservation is not simply about protecting an animal inside a protected area. It brings together the ecological role of the leopard, landscape connectivity, cultural values, human-wildlife conflict, livelihoods, transformation and equitable benefit sharing.”

Observing that much of the species’ habitat lies outside protected areas, Muir also warns against reducing “sustainable use” to a numerical quota.

“How an animal is hunted, the biological circumstances in which hunting takes place, the impact on the local population and the wider ecological consequences are equally important.”

According to Muir, the strategy envisages camera traps, population modelling and adaptive management informing hunting decisions. He would like it to spell out more clearly how those mechanisms would inform responsible and humane use.

“Perhaps the most important issue is that we should not allow the leopard debate to become simply a debate about hunting,” he says.

“Leopards are landscape species. Their future depends on connected habitat, functioning ecosystems, reducing illegal killing and human-wildlife conflict, maintaining viable prey populations, working with private and communal landowners and ensuring that people living alongside leopards have a meaningful stake in their conservation.”

**The value of an animal without a price on its head**

Dr Matthew Schurch, the senior wildlife specialist at Humane World for Animals South Africa, says he would like stakeholders and the public to ask: what is custodianship protecting here?

His organisation supports elements of the draft such as habitat, monitoring and a national approach to conflict. He says a blueprint for managing that conflict was overdue, but argues that “non-lethal” responses should come first.

“We would like to see such a framework explicitly prioritise humane, evidence-based and non-lethal measures wherever possible,” he says. “Critically, it should not be used as a justification for commercial hunting of leopards.”

Schurch also welcomed proposed “Biodiversity Management Agreements” that would create tax incentives for protecting leopards, although he says effectiveness must include funding and transparent implementation.

His stronger objection is to an apparent human-centric draft that over-arbitrates the big cat’s “independent” right to be what it does best – being a free and wild leopard.

!["I was driving along Tilodi loop and we noticed a few giraffes staring intently at the rocks. If you spend enough time in the bush you know that animal behaviour often gives away the predators we are looking for. the giraffe stared and stared without moving at all.
We switched off the car and waited patiently to see what they would reveal. Turned out to be one of our beautiful lockdown babies just hiding behind a rock. I had the privilege of naming her Nandi - “meaning joyful surprise." (Photo: Debbie Fendick)](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/UhEZX3cHDLInIRbLLqILOuQwfdI=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/attachments/orphans/ME-Tiara-LeopardStrat4_570040.jpg)

*“Nandi” was a “joyful surprise”, recalls the photographer. (Photo: Debbie Fendick)*

“It still largely frames leopards through the benefits or costs they present to people,” Schurch says. “It does not clearly recognise leopards as sentient animals with intrinsic value, independent of any perceived economic, cultural or consumptive use value.”

This, he argues, is a legal imperative.

“South African law now requires the wellbeing of animals to be considered in biodiversity management, conservation and sustainable use,” he says. “And [our courts have linked the protection of individual animals](https://emsfoundation.org.za/wp-content/uploads/EMSF-letter-to-CEO-EKZNW-S-Mkhize-180326.pdf) to broader conservation objectives.”

The strategy and action plan should therefore require management decisions – including hunting, conflict responses, trade and access to leopard parts – to consider impacts on individuals and the species itself.

“Stakeholder demand alone cannot render a harmful or poorly evidenced practice lawful, humane or sustainable.”

The fault line is the precautionary principle seen from different vantage points. And whether leopards – whose financial contribution to ecosystems is noted by the draft but not substantively priced – should have to pay rent to humanity as landlord.

Nevertheless, ’t Sas-Rolfes believes the document offers “a reasonably balanced and pragmatic approach to accommodating these conflicting views” – but adds that success hinges on government-led initiatives that could run into funding constraints.

The public have until Sunday, 4 October [to air their views](https://www.dffe.gov.za/sites/default/files/legislations/nemba_draftleopardconservationstrategy_actionplan_g55299gon7877.pdf). Daily Maverick has contacted DFFE for comment. **DM**