Every night, leopards cross the R40, a 47km road cutting through the Greater Kruger region in Limpopo, one of South Africa's most wildlife-rich landscapes. Until recently, nobody had a clear picture of what happened when they did.
Since January 2025, the Ingwe Research Program has been working to change that. Across 84 survey days, the team has covered 7,896km of patrols along this road, recording 198 animal mortalities across 38 confirmed species, though the actual number is likely significantly higher as some carcasses were too damaged to identify with certainty, potentially bringing the total closer to 56. Beyond the patrol data, eight leopards have been killed on local roads since May 2024, all reported by residents.
At the same time, Ingwe has been monitoring culverts beneath the road for animal crossings and mapping the hotspots where wildlife is most at risk, working towards a roadmap of practical solutions that can be implemented progressively.
Africa Geographic spent time in the field with the team and produced a 40-minute documentary about the project. That film is called Spots on the Line, and it is coming to Cape Town.
Following the screening, a discussion panel will bring together researchers and conservationists from the Ingwe Research Program, the Urban Caracal Project and the Cape Leopard Trust.
The Urban Caracal Project is a Cape Town-based research and conservation programme studying caracals in the Cape Peninsula. Vehicle collisions are the leading cause of caracal mortality in the area, and the project is working to understand and reduce that risk through research, community engagement and road awareness initiatives.
The Cape Leopard Trust works to conserve leopards and their habitat across the Western Cape, including the Overberg where their Tale of Two Leopards project addresses road mortality for both Cape leopards and Western leopard toads in collaboration with the Endangered Wildlife Trust.
The connection between these three organisations is road mortality. In the Greater Kruger, leopards navigate the R40 every night. On the Cape Peninsula, vehicle collisions are the leading cause of mortality for caracals. In the Overberg, Western leopard toads and Cape leopards face the same roads. These are different species in different landscapes, but the underlying challenge is the same: wildlife and roads sharing the same space.
The panel will explore what each organisation is learning, what solutions are being tested, and what it will take to make South Africa's roads safer for wildlife at scale.
A raffle will run alongside the evening, with prizes ranging from R230 to R11,000 donated by brands committed to the outdoors and conservation. Raffle tickets are R50 each and you can buy as many as you like. They are available as add-ons when purchasing your event ticket below. All raffle proceeds support Ingwe's road ecology research.