Now its personal!

As many as you have already seen it has come to our attention that a large male has been snared. He appears to have been caught around the chest and broke free with the wire embedded in his flesh. We know this animal is in great pain and suffering badly which is tragic for any any animal. However what makes this incident even worse is that this large ale is not just any leopard but Black Tip, the largest resident male we have been following for over a year now. He is the male we have photographed with diamond one of the female we follow, we captured an image of rare behaviour of him walking with another male and now to see this magnificent being brought down at the handsof poachers. The lower image was the first image wecaptured of himin the snare at the beggining of this month, as you can see already cutting into his flesh. The above image was taken on the 16th almost two weeks later, the same time the image that is already posted on our facebook page. He you can see his body condition has fallen considerably. This beautiful boy once a legend for size is nowloosing bulk and strength. Due to the image above and the factthat we photographed the Lucky, our other resident male, in the same location we fear he two males may have fought and the weakenedblack tip as come off worse as he seems rather sorry for himself and on close inspection of this photograph shows signs combat. We currently have a trap out in the hope of being able to help black tip however we fear it may already be too late.

Written By Emma Loader, ILP Researcher