I set out on my afternoon game drive with the intention of looking for a leopard. But not just any leopard, but one with two cubs. She had had a kill earlier in the day so my tracker and I thought that she would still be there in the afternoon. So we went straight to that area. As we were looking around we found some of her tracks going to a water hole and then going back to the same area in which the kill was. So we knew she was there in the block.

As we entered the block, we searched. We drove around for a while. There she was, walking in the grass. Briefly, we lost visual so we had to go around again. We found her lying in the tall grass. It took us a while to see her nicely as she is so well camouflaged. I tried to get a better visual of her for the guests but unfortunately the grass was too long. So we sat with her for a while with the hope that she would get up soon.

As I was talking to my guests about this amazing and elusive animal, my tracker, Alfred, said to me “look over there”. As I looked in that direction I saw something next to a tree. I was amazed. One of the cubs was lying in a small open area looking straight at us. The cub is around four months old and is adorable.

This was the first time I had seen a leopard cub this small and I will never forget it. These cubs are already very relaxed; therefore I hope that they will establish their territories inside the Kapama premises. They will make for awesome sightings in the future. Let us hope for he best for these little ones.

Kim Pretorius
14/07/2012