chui

Feb 18 2016, 07:18 AM

A big male leopard shot in the Aberdare mountains of Kenya in 1968. The photo is from the book, "Shoot Straight and Stay Alive" by professional hunter Fred Bartlett. The skull of this leopard is listed in the Rowland Ward Records, measuring 273mm long and 178mm wide (17.75 inch total score). Bartlett said this was one of the biggest leopards he had seen in the mountain forests of Kenya with a heavily built body, he estimated its weight at 200 to 220lbs. Bartlett appears to be a reliable source and this was probably a genuine 180lb+ leopard. Any leopard with a skull measuring 17 inches or more should be considered huge.



As mentioned before, the leopards of the Rift Valley highland forests in East Africa were highly prized by trophy hunters. Of the leopard populations for which some appreciable data on weights has historically been recorded (ie. East/Southern Africa and India) these East African mountain leopards are IMO the most impressive. Apart from Iran where a few 200lb leopards have now been recorded most genuine 200lbers recorded historically have come from the highland forests of East Africa. The heaviest being a 212lb leopard with a 18.76 inch skull shot on Mt Kenya in 1964 which is probably the heaviest leopard reliably recorded in my opinion. PH Hamilton who carried out much research on leopards in Kenya gives a weight range for male highland forest leopards in the country as 60-95kg, the upper limit probably being derived from this specimen.

Kenya banned hunting in the late 1970s after which you would think these leopards would have thrived. In actuality, poaching became rampant in places like the Aberdares and Mt Kenya after the hunting ban and the leopards in these forests along with their prey became much scarcer. Thankfully the country has recently made great efforts to preserve its forests by putting up fences to better protect the wildlife and prevent conflict with people. The fence around the Aberdare mountain forests was completed in 2009 and now once again the leopard population there seems to be thriving. Getting rid of trophy hunting is great IMO but only if proper conservation measures can be put in place afterwards.