AS YOUNG AS THEY COME

Seeing a leopard in the wild is always a special sighting, especially when the leopard is behaving in the same manner as she would if the vehicle was or wasn’t there.

This evening we had that kind of experience coupled with the unveiling of this particular leopard's brand new cub. We were following up on tracks around Dulini Lodge during our afternoon drive today, in the hopes that we could get some late afternoon action from the incredible predator. But instead we saw something completely unexpected...

For the past week or two this particular female had been spending a lot of time moving back and forth from a very dense drainage line, so we had a feeling she was either looking for a place to den or had dropped already.

We took our chances anyway and as we rounded a bend in the road we saw the leopardess emerge in the distance. It was clear she was carrying something in her mouth. This particular leopard has previously been seen hunting cane rats, and various mongoose species, and from the distance we saw her we initially thought we had just missed a kill. But on closer inspection it was far better than that. The leopard sauntered past the vehicle and almost bragged with her about two-week-old cub dangling from her mouth. She walked slowly and stopped every so often to reposition the youngster before moving off toward another thick drainage line. I would assume she was about to establish a secondary den site.

A new discovery like this can almost be compared to finding money in your pocket when you didn’t know it was there, except the feeling I had was better. (Picture from William Moss in the same sighting shortly after discovery).

Posted: Exeter Lodges by Andrew van den Broeck, Date: 5 January 2012