Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
Botswana Leopard
Leopard we disturbed as it was ready to pounce on Impala
My friend Grant whom I grew up with at Shongwe and I came upon one near Shingwedzi as
it was lying on the road stalking an impala. The impala ran off when it saw us but the leopard
refused to budge, giving us a scornful look for disturbing the hunt.
Leopards are ubiquitous in South Africa, sometimes even captured in the big cities surviving
on dogs and cats. A few years ago one was caught in a suburb of Johannesburg near the
international airport. I was once visiting Somerset West, a town outside Cape Town, when I
instinctively woke during the night to the sound of dogs going crazy in the neighborhood. I
listened carefully and shortly heard the unmistaken sound of a leopard outside my window.
The sound is that of a saw being drawn across dry wood in one direction, not backwards and
forwards. Waiting till dawn, I went out examined the flowerbed of blue hydrangeas under my
window and found the unmistakable pugmarks of a fair sized tom leopard. In 2010, I was
dropping my wife off with her sister at Everglades Lodge on the outskirts of Pietermaritzburg,
when in the middle of the road there was a female leopard that gave us a nonchalant glance and
then sauntered casually off. There are many duiker antelope in the area but as far as I was
aware, it has never been known to have leopards. I mentioned it to my brother, who told me his
best friend John had been fishing not that far from there and spotted a female leopard under a
tree. He reported it to the local game ranger who said “we see her there regularly.” Where
Search WWH ::
Custom Search