Sunday 22 July 2012

Leopard in Dramatic Photo Traced to 2004 Camera Trap


ScienceDaily (July 19, 2012) — A dramatic photo of a male leopard dragging a massive gaur (or Indian bison) calf in Karnataka's Bandipur Tiger Reserve turned out to be the same animal photographed by a WCS camera trap nearly eight years ago.

The photo, taken by Indian photographer Vinay S. Kumar, was initially submitted to Conservation India, a not-for-profit portal to enable conservation action. Intrigued by the picture, CI's editors sent it to researchers at Wildlife Conservation Society's India Program who have been running a tiger-monitoring program for over two decades -- the longest in the world. Their huge database of camera trap pictures also includes hundreds of pictures of leopards.

The male was quickly identified, thanks to special computer software that can compare rosette patterns, as Bandipur Leopard #123 or BPL-123, which was first camera-trapped on December 2, 2004, according to Dr. N. Samba Kumar, Joint Director -- Conservation Science, WCS -- India.

Picture:  
 http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/07/120719110938.htm

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