Seven leopards — including two tiny cubs — are quietly reclaiming South Africa’s West Coast

Researchers with the Landmark Foundation have identified seven individual leopards living on South Africa’s West Coast, two of them cubs about six months old. South African National Parks caught one on a camera trap inside West Coast National Park last November — the first confirmed sighting there in roughly 170 years, after the cats were hunted out generations ago. Nobody released them: the leopards came back on their own, as protected areas and wildlife corridors grew. Now conservation groups are working with local sheep farmers on deterrents and compensation, so the fragile new population stays safe.