Leopard Sightings at Rich Ranch

Well the leopard photos have arrived and I can share them with you.

We regularly see leopard spoor on the farm but in all the time that we have been on the farm we have never seen one. We have seen the kills and in fact there have been quite a few of them. One kill was on our northern boundary and the wildebeest that the leopard was after tried to make it through the fence but just couldn’t make it. The leopard was very fussy and only had a good piece of the rump. Normally they carry the whole carcass off but not this time. The rest was left behind.

On another occasion the leopard preyed on one of our blesbuck. We found the remains just off the road one morning and when we passed by the afternoon again the jackals had cleaned up everything. We have also on other occasions lost some calves and baby blesbuck.

When the spoor was sited about three or four kilometers from our main gate our neighbour decided to put out some bait and a motion camera was set up.




Normally the leopard, being nocturnal, will do all his hunting in the dark of the night but these photos were taken at 0730 which is really strange. We can only think that it was so quiet there that he did not mind being out in broad daylight. He was quite at ease and spent nearly a half hour in this area.
What magnificent creatures they are. They must be the most elegant and beautiful of all the big cats.