National Geographic: Eye of the Leopard Page #3

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He is always ready to turn and confront

and growl his warning displeasure.

It's sometimes hard for us to appreciate

that in this melee of strange looking animals

and incidental interactions,

many of these creatures actually

know one another intimately.

The hyenas can tell him apart

from other leopards.

Legadema has inherited some

of these traits from her father,

but the hyenas and lions here

don't treat her with the same respect.

It's a lesson she learned early on in life.

She was a six month old cub then.

Mother and daughter were spending

all their time together.

They were comfortable,

perhaps even enjoying each other,

as they spent hours playing

and hunting together.

Legadema was becoming more of a companion

to her mother than just a cub.

On this day she was being shown the boundaries

of the territory and everything was new for her.

It was her first wet season.

Butterflies and flowers

danced in front of her eyes,

luring her off into the forest,

further and further from her mother.

Distraction like this, can mean the

difference between life and death

in a place bristling with other predators.

Fortunately for leopards,

the lions here are too bulky to climb trees.

Suddenly, there were lions everywhere,

young energetic lions that

don't know their limitations.

They are always keen to drag

another cat down and rip it to pieces.

It is a dark competitive instinct

within them,

and that day they had a

real chance of succeeding.

But Legadema has an advantage

over them in tree climbing.

Unlike lions, leopards have a

locking wrist or ankle bone.

When lions climb, their ankles slide sideways

under their body weight.

Even turning around is difficult, and they often

end up in an undignified heap at the base of the tree.

Caught in a tree with lions

camped out between them,

Legadema's mother had

no way of knowing

if the growls and hisses in the distance

was Legadema in serious trouble, or not.

To survive, she should stay

in the tree tops.

But as a mother,

she needed to get to her cub.

Legadema's mother decided

to risk all to get to her cub.

Too much excitement for one day,

and the lions barely noticed her discreet exit.

Legadema's alert awareness

of the forest has saved her.

Together at last,

the crisis avoided,

mother and daughter

released the pent up tension

that staring danger

in the face always brings.

The two relieved cats

resumed their play,

even more connected by

their traumatic adventure,

flying through the trees

like high wire acrobats,

suspended in a world of their own,

way above the dangers that lions

and hyenas bring down below.

Lions or no lions,

this was there time to be together.

A time to share each other's elation

and each other's pain,

in a way that only mothers

and daughters can ever know.

Each day, Legadema was adding

small pieces of knowledge to her arsenal,

emotions that would

guide her through life.

Today, this young female with a

unique whisker spot is bush wise.

Those early games have taught her

how to slip up and down trees in a blur of

movement and to know her escape routes well.

In a place like Mombo, any leopard runs the risk

of walking into much larger animals.

The predator scent that surrounds her

brings out their aggression.

Almost everything chases a cat here,

especially a small one like Legadema.

A cat that can't find that hollowed out log to retreat to

in a moment's crisis, will be caught out and attacked.

But this is her world.

It is her place of comfort,

in trees she has run up a hundred times,

or down paths led only by familiar scents.

Her beautifully patterned fur

is like her cloak of invisibility,

but one creature in the treetops

always sees through her disguise.

It is a constant irritation.

When her eyes stray to squirrels,

they know the trouble is coming their way.

From her earliest days,

Legadema's destiny would be intertwined with these

screeching alarmists high up in the forest.

Deep within her soul lurked a lethal killer,

but at two weeks old...

she couldn't quite get

the execution right.

The mind was willing,

but the legs were simply too short.

Within her though, the quiet seeds of a supreme

squirrel huntress were starting to grow.

They taunted her for months with a

continual stream of insults from above,

and she had had enough.

Their time had come!

She was focused and ready.

At three months old, she was agile enough,

no longer afraid of heights

and ready to take her small fight

to the battle field.

Squirrel hunting is a bit like

monkey hunting, but faster!

It's like unlocking a series

of puzzles all joined together,

a game of aerial hide and seek.

Every nerve in her body danced

with the anticipation of her first kill,

alive at that moment of death, hungry for

her initiation into the world of predators.

But at three months old,

Legadema was only nearly ready.

She had the heart of a hunter...

but not the balance yet.

She had the eye of a leopard,

but not the best appreciation of

her growing hip size behind her.

She'd have to wait a while longer

for that first kill.

The chase had inflamed her passion

for the hunt, and the squirrels.

Things were about to change.

Today, Legadema is the most deadly

squirrel hunter in the entire region.

For her, this was never merely

practice for larger prey.

Her fascination with squirrels has gone way beyond

the potential of a furry mouthful of bones.

It is a battle of wills

and she has become an expert.

These tiny african squirrels have been fleeing

for their lives ever since she was a cub.

They have almost become

an obsession for her.

She has figured out how to hunt them down and

spares no amount of energy to get to a squirrel.

Legadema relishes each morsel she catches.

In the past three years, she must have reduced

the local squirrel population by at least 300!

It is a passion for this leopard.

It is an intoxicating reward.

But with each kill,

her activity unveils her.

She hates being seen.

All leopards do.

When one animal sets off

a general alarm,

it ripples through the forest,

warning all of them.

And yet, it is a rare moment to glimpse a ghost

out in the open, before it disappears into the ether.

Some, like the impala here,

seem fascinated by the vision.

They sometimes follow, just to keep

an eye on her for as long as possible.

A leopard you can see,

is always better than one you can't.

Their snorting calls add another layer

to the complex network of information

that all animals rely on.

Legadema has found

a different signal,

a scents that,

once decoded,

she knows belongs to her mother.

She came this way recently.

But as Legadema inhales,

the message is disturbing.

She senses something new

within her mother, a change.

And a change she may not like.

It is piglet season again!

She'll interrupt anything for this.

Two years ago,

she was introduced to the delights of the pig season

for the first time, while watching her mother.

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