Elusive Black Panther Tracked in Kenya

There have long been talks about sightings of the elusive Black Panther around central Kenya. Recently researchers have confirmed the presence of the Black Panther when they captured a series of rare images taken by camera traps as part of a study.

Researchers from the San Diego Zoo captured the images of the panther. They have been studying leopards in the Loisaba wildlife conservancy. At the same time, an independent photographer working in the region also captured the images of the black leopard, thereby reconfirming the presence of the black cat.

The Loisaba wildlife conservancy declared in its website, “We are very excited to hear that these camera traps have captured rare footage of melanistic leopards, otherwise known as black panthers”. Melanism is a genetic mutation like albinism, which leads to a surplus in pigment, which turns the fur or skin of an animal black.

The study on the leopard was led by Nicholas Pilfold, San Diego Zoo researcher and has been published in the African Journal of Ecology in January this year. The study said the photos are also the first scientific confirmation of the black leopard’s presence in Africa in the century.

The last confirmed report was also a photograph taken in Addis Ababa in the year 1909 that is preserved in the Museum of National History in the United States. Though a captive black leopard was photographed in 2013 in Kenya, while other images taken from a helicopter is circulated in the year 2018. But, the recent photos represent the first recorded scientific evidence.

Nicholas Pilfold has said, that after receiving numerous reports of sightings of the leopard, his team fixed eight camera traps in different locations in the area in the month of February 2018 and within three months they have successfully captured the images of a sub-adult female.

Pilfold also estimates there are “definitely two, possibly three leopards" present in the region. He also said, “By far, these are the best, most intimate images we have of a black leopard in Africa, there hasn't been anything like this before”.

Along with the camera traps by Pilford’s team, Photographer Will Burrard-Lucas used his personally designed Camtraptions camera trap to capture images of the same leopards in the region and his photographs are also released along with the study. Black leopards are documented well in South East Asia, but in Africa little is known about their presence.

Any big cat species with the symptoms of Melanism is known as a black panther, they are also known as black leopards in Asia and Africa and in Americas they are known as black jaguars and 11 percent of leopards across the globe are black.