TURF WARS

We were following a female leopard (Rollercoaster). Our vehicle was silent as we watched. The leopard was silently stalking a herd of impala. Her focus on the herd, that was about 20 metres away, was quite intense. We all had our fingers crossed that we would see such a rarely witnessed kind of kill.

We heard a kudu bark east of us and the rollercoaster female immediately lost interest in the herd. ‘Baah,’ the kudu barked again and again. Suddenly all thoughts of the hunt were abandoned and the leopard slunk away to investigate the disturbance.

The impala were seemingly none the wiser that one of them had been inches away from death. A few weeks earlier we were fortunate enough to witness this same female kill a duiker. Her kill was stolen just a few seconds later by the dominant male leopard.

Now she was hunting once again in an area where she would be less likely to lose another kill. We followed the leopard towards the alarming kudu. She slunk through the undergrowth and across the dry Tjhallanga river bed and dashed up the bank on the other side to investigate.

As we moved around into the area of the alarm calls, a young male leopard was spotted (Jakkalsdraai son) lying in a large tree. The Rollercoaster female approached the area, seemingly furious at the cheek of this young male trying to settle in her territory. She started salivating heavily. Her poise was low and menacing, and she growled continuously. She approached cautiously since the male was larger than her. He seemed to lack the psychological confidence of not being in his own territory.

These two animals lay less than 3 meters apart. They both seemed to know that coming to physical blows would result in serious injury, and so the battle between them remained psychological.

A bull elephant approached the area and proceeded to chase the furious pair. The turf war ended with the young male being chased by the female leopard who, herself, was being chased by the elephant!

This photo was taken by one of my guests, Eric Schoch.

Posted: Kirkman's Kamp by Anton Walker, Date: 3 September 2010