Research overview: African leopard ranging and GPS studies

Leopards are among the most adaptable big cats, persisting from deserts to forests to the edges of cities, and this overview synthesizes telemetry research on their ranging across African landscapes. GPS studies reveal how leopard home-range size and movement vary with prey availability, competition with lions and hyenas, and human pressure, and how leopards exploit cover, rocky terrain, and riparian zones. The overview discusses how leopards navigate human-dominated areas, sometimes moving close to settlements and livestock, and how this flexibility brings them into frequent conflict. Movement data inform conflict mitigation, the design of conservancies, and understanding of how leopards maintain populations in fragmented and farmed landscapes. As a widespread and behaviorally plastic felid, the leopard offers a valuable comparative case for how big cats adjust movement to varied and often human-altered environments.