A NOTE FROM MARINE
Four investment banking students from US universities spent four weeks embedded with us through iXperience. None had worked with a non-profit before. None had thought much about wildlife conservation. By the end of the month, all four had started saying ‘we’ when they talked about Ingwe. That shift, from ‘you’ to ‘we’, is not a small thig. They also left us with a three-year financial model, an endowment fund assessment, and a 15-page development roadmap for the Ingwe mobile app. More on that below.
THE LEOPARDS THIS MONTH
Vuuxika meets Moya. Their mothers would be proud.
Moya is the daughter of Mbilu, the female who made Raptors View Wildlife Estate her territory, raised five cubs to adulthood, and was killed by lions in mid-2025, possibly trying to protect her last cub Osindile. Mbilu was herself the daughter of Kulua, a fourteen-year-old leopardess from the Hoedspruit Wildlife Estate who has now raised seven cubs to adulthood. Kulua’s lineage spans multiple generations of leopards we know by name.
Vuuxika is one of them. Son of Dzaha, also from the Hoedspruit Wildlife Estate, born in early 2024. Dzaha hasn’t been seen since November 2025; we don’t yet know whether she died or was displaced by Ncila, a new female in the area.
In June, Vuuxika and Moya were captured together on camera traps in Raptors View. Two leopards around two and a half years old, both without their mothers, both just beginning to find their range.
A mating between them at this stage would be early but not impossible. If it happens, we could see cubs within three months; the next chapter of a lineage we have been following for years.
Mbilu & Kulua raised cubs in the Wildlife Estates precisely because it has no lions. That absence gave them something rare. Wildlife estates without lions are not a lesser form of conservation, they are a specific and valuable one. Their successful litters are evidence of what safe habitat makes possible.
If you manage or live in a wildlife estate, this story is a direct argument for what your land does. Our human-leopard coexistence survey across three wildlife estates explores this dynamic in detail and is available on our website.
WHAT ELSE HAPPENED IN JUNE
Roads: a hippo, and a female we couldn’t identify
Our roadkill network reported a first: a young hippo struck on the R40, who made it to the roadside before collapsing. The Endangered Wildlife Trust also informed us of a young female leopard killed on the N4, south of the Kruger Park, outside our study area and unidentifiable from the images, but a reminder that the R40 is not the only road with this problem.
Help us create awareness, grab your bumper stickers from our Africa Geographic campaign at the Raptors View Wildlife Estate office, Trophy Travel Rental and Roots Flowers Market in Hoedspruit.
Culverts: 14 individuals, one new face
Completing the remaining wet season camera files, we found Nkanyi, a female from Olifants West Nature Reserve, crossing three different culverts on three separate occasions, going through the fence to reach them. That brings our total to 14 individual leopards at culverts across both seasons. The culverts might be established routes, not opportunistic crossings. Tanis Short’s full formal analysis of all culvert data is expected early in 2027.
Scout and Ali: three scats, no shortcuts
While searching a leopard movement corridor this month, Scout’s behaviour changed, almost imperceptibly. A slight shift in pace, a subtle change in his body language. Rather than moving on, Ali recognised the signal and encouraged him to keep working the area. Three leopard scats, found entirely in the wild, with no planted samples and no shortcuts. The dog contributes an extraordinary sense of smell; the handler contributes ecological knowledge, field experience, and the ability to read what the dog cannot say out loud. More than 40 training sessions and over 10 hours of focused leopard work between them. Conservation detection is not the dog’s skill alone or the handler’s, it is the partnership.
A NOTE FOR YOU
Depending on how you’re connected to this work, one of these is written specifically for you.
🤝 If you’ve donated to Ingwe
Our Trustee Paul lost his cat Carla in May. Recently, his friends Evelyn McDonald Howard made a donation in her memory. We also received a donation from the Bailey family after losing their cat Ngala, killed by a car, a fate shared by at least eight leopards in our study area. A domestic cat’s passing becoming protection for wild cats: there is something quietly beautiful about that. If you have lost a pet, or know someone who loves animals deeply, a tribute donation to Ingwe is a way to make that grief matter. We will always acknowledge it.
Donors who give between R10,000 and R19,999 are recognised as Ingwe Partners, an acknowledgement of the difference that level of support makes. If you’ve been thinking about deepening your involvement, we’d love to welcome you.
We also thank Kim Gravell, Samantha Ulyett and Elizabeth Neilson, who donated after receiving a t-shirt from On Track Safaris, our founding sponsor of fifteen years. A gift leading to a gift. That’s how conservation grows.
🔭 If you submit sightings or contribute data
The mystery male from last month, moving between Kapama and Blue Canyon, is now in our database with a new identifier. No field sighting yet. The naming challenge remains open. And the app is live on the Google Play Store: every submission now goes directly into the research database. If you haven’t downloaded it yet, now is the time.
ONE THING YOU CAN DO
Help us build what the students mapped out.
Alongside their financial work, the iXperience students produced a 15-page development roadmap for the Ingwe app, richer data visualisations for reserve managers, deeper individual leopard profiles, expanded gamification to sustain citizen science engagement, and the infrastructure to scale beyond 31 reserves.
The roadmap exists. The students did the scoping. What it needs now is funding to execute.
This is not a general donation ask. It is an invitation to fund a specific, documented piece of conservation technology, built by volunteers, scoped by students, and ready to grow. Reach out at partnerships@ingweresearchprogram.org
COMING NEXT MONTH
The App Store version of the Ingwe app was approved, can we reach 100 users before the end of July?
PARTNERS & SPONSORS
• Africa Geographic — bumper sticker awareness campaign on the R40
• On Track Safaris — founding sponsor; supporting Scout and Ali’s conservation detection dog programme
• Transfrontier Africa — field operations & research partner
• Brett Horley Safaris & Kolokwe Safari — hosting Ingwe’s first conservation and research day for guests next year
• iXperience — for placing four investment banking students with Ingwe this June
• Evelyn McDonald Howard — donated in memory of Carla
• Kim Gravell, Samantha Ulyett & Elizabeth Neilson — donated after receiving a gift from On Track Safaris
