Urban Caracals - Vol 3 Sneak Peek
In the city of Cape Town, South Africa, you are unlikely to meet a lion crossing the road, but you may spot one of Africa’s more secretive wild cats – the caracal.
Article by: Rosie Brown
Artwork by: Claire Heffron
If you are to think of urban wildlife, what are the first animals that come to mind? Perhaps pigeons perched atop lampposts, or foxes dozing beside train tracks in the city; maybe even leopards prowling the streets of Mumbai. In the city of Cape Town, South Africa, you are unlikely to meet a lion crossing the road, but you may spot one of Africa’s more secretive wild cats – the caracal.
Caracals (Caracal caracal) are medium-sized cats with long legs and short coats. Depending on geographical location there are variations in coat colour, from a light sandy colour to a dark brick-red and everything in between.
Their most iconic feature is their black-tipped tufted ears, which give them some resemblance to lynxes, which they are known as in Africa although they are not closely related. Their powerful back legs enable them to launch 10 feet into the air – useful when hunting for birds! They can be found across Africa, the Middle East, and southwest Asia.
Although very unlikely to be seen snuffling through the rubbish in an alleyway, the 60 or so caracals of Cape Town can be seen on the urban edge – where the concrete jungle meets wilderness. The Cape Peninsula is geographically isolated by Cape Town, which is rapidly increasing in size resulting in the isolation of many wildlife populations.
This region is a biodiversity hotspot, and with caracals being the largest predator, they have become somewhat iconic to the area, an ‘umbrella species’ - a term attributed to a species thought to be the best representatives of an ecosystem.
The Urban Caracal Project was set up in 2014 by Dr Laurel Serieys to study and monitor the population in Cape Town, and how urbanisation was affecting these cats. Through studying the caracal, it is hoped that we can better understand their role within the ecosystem, as well as how urbanisation affects wildlife across South Africa and other parts of the world.
Caracals are extremely elusive, so monitoring them can be incredibly difficult. Researchers are rarely able to make direct observations, particularly in mountainous areas like the Cape Peninsula, so rely on trapping and reported sightings from members of the public. Once trapped, samples are taken for disease, genetic and pesticide testing, and the caracals are then tagged and fitted with a GPS collar to track their movements.
Through an intensive trapping period from November 2014 to September 2016, and gathering data from deceased caracals, scat and prey remains, the project has been able to build a detailed understanding of these urban dwellers.
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