The bronze leopard overlooking the beach is a familiar sight to motorists, yet its meaning often goes unnoticed. Created by sculptor Ivan Mitford-Barberton in 1963, the statue weighs around 295 kg and was presented to the Hout Bay community as a tribute to the wildlife that once lived on the Cape Peninsula. Pepsi-Cola supported the project by providing the bronze for the casting. Over decades, exposure to salty sea air has oxidised the surface, giving the sculpture its distinctive blue-green patina.
According to records from the Hout Bay Museum, the last confirmed leopard sighting in the area was in 1937 on Little Lion’s Head. At that time, leopards still occurred across much of the Cape Peninsula. As human settlements expanded, natural habitats shrank, and the animals were either hunted or pushed into more remote mountain regions.
Leopards no longer live in Hout Bay or on the Cape Peninsula, but small, scattered populations survive elsewhere in the Western Cape and nearby areas. These include the Cederberg, the Boland mountains, parts of the Overberg such as the Riviersonderend range, the Kogelberg Biosphere Reserve and Walker Bay area, the Outeniqua Mountains along the Garden Route, and the Zuurberg Mountains in the Eastern Cape.
Leopards in the Western Cape differ from those in savanna regions. They are typically smaller and require much larger territories — often more than 100 square kilometres per animal — because prey is less abundant in mountainous fynbos environments. They are elusive, mostly active at night, and tend to avoid people by staying in rugged, inaccessible terrain.
Their continued presence in parts of the Overberg has been confirmed through camera-trap images and ongoing field research by conservation groups. Even so, sightings are rare. One widely reported incident occurred near Betty’s Bay, where a leopard entered the Stony Point African penguin colony and killed more than 30 endangered penguins.
