Trail cameras have helped Georgian officials make an amazing discovery for just the third time in 20 years.
As Georgia Today reported, cameras in Algeti National Park captured a leopard walking along a fence line. According to the country’s Ministry of Environmental Protection and Agriculture, the sighting happened along a 2.5-mile fence that protects a 177-acre deer enclosure within the park.
This is just the third recorded sighting of a leopard within the Eastern European nation in the past two decades.
“Leopards are extremely cautious and avoid people,” Revaz Bezhashvili, head of the National Wildlife Agency, told Georgia Today. “The deer are safe, while outside the enclosure, the leopard has abundant natural prey.”
As the Miami Herald reported, only two of the dozens of cameras along the fence line captured footage of the leopard. But that was enough for officials to conclude that it moves on just three legs and doesn’t use its front left paw, in a manner similar to a leopard spotted last year in Armenia.
The leopard is labeled as Vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species, with its population decreasing in recent years. Largely because of poaching, the leopard had been considered extinct in Georgia since the mid-1900s, until the past 20 years.
Georgian officials say the sighting shows its biodiversity efforts are proving successful. The country has 100 protected environmental areas that span nearly 2.3 million acres.
The sighting also highlights the growing importance of trail cameras in ecological research.
Trail cameras can be placed in areas where they’re not easily spotted by wildlife and can stay there for long periods without human interaction, making them perfect for observing animal behavior that humans normally don’t get to witness.
They also provide insights into how animal populations have shifted over time and whether threatened or endangered species are making comebacks in specific areas. Cameras in the Central African Republic recently spotted a lioness and her cubs, in the region’s first female lion sighting since 2019. Others captured rare footage of a bobcat wandering through Ohio.
Cameras even captured another species of leopard, the “golden coin” leopard, earlier this year in North China.
Join our free newsletter for good news and useful tips, and don’t miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet.