I’ve written before about how happy I was to spend New Year’s Day 2016 with a mother leopard and her cub, at Shinde Camp in Botswana.
In March 2018 I went back to the same general area of Botswana (the Kwando concession of the Okavango Delta), this time I was staying at Kwara Camp, which is just a bit east of Shinde. I knew I was in the same general area as Shinde, and I secretly hoped to see the mother leopard and maybe even her sub-adult cub again. I arrived at Kwara on the afternoon of April 15th, and I was very happy to learn that my small plane would be landing at the Shinde air strip, because Kwara’s was undergoing repairs. I thought that was sign of good luck, being that I enjoyed Shinde so much in 2015-2016. Of course, I was unbelievably happy just to be back in Botswana.
Looking back at my journal entries from that trip, I’m reminded that over the next two days we saw lions, servals, had an afternoon boat ride, and I drank lots of amarula. We also spent several hours following leopard tracks without success, once on a morning drive and again on that day’s evening drive. I remember those drives, and how much we all hoped for a leopard sighting, and how hard our guide and tracker, G. and A.T., worked to follow the tracks. We checked trees, shady areas, grassy areas, etc, and had nothing but pawprints to show for it.
On the evening of the 17th I wrote that I was getting disappointed and gloomy over not seeing a leopard. If you’ve seen any of my other posts here, this should come as no surprise. I’m always incredibly hopeful for spotted cats, and that hope quickly turns to pessimism and despair when I don’t get to see one within 42 seconds of maybe the third game drive of the trip. I’ll think I’ve made a mistake, chosen the wrong camp, I have terrible luck, and I won’t have another chance until who-knows-when.
And as usual, I was quickly proven wrong. On the morning of the 18th we started out with a mokoro boat ride, which was beautiful and I got to see some of my favorite little frogs. The plan was to hop on a truck by maybe 8:30 – 9 or so and do a game drive. I of course had already decided that we’d missed the prime viewing hour and all the spotted cats would have disappeared, and I might as well just skip the rest of the trip and go straight home now.
Just after getting into the truck and starting the drive, some men who worked for the camp drove up alongside us and spoke with our guide, Hobbs, for a minute. Hobbs told us that they’d seen a leopard not far from here. I immediately knew that the leopard was long gone, and that if we’d skipped the mokoro ride, maybe we would have had a chance at the sighting. The morning had gotten very hot, and by now all the animals would be in a shady hiding spot where we could not find them, and that was that.
But within a few minutes I was proven wrong when we drove up to a tree and there was our leopard, curled up and resting on some branches that extended out from the trunk. She was calm and allowed us to pull up close to the tree and watch her quietly while we took pictures. Hobbs told us that she was female and pregnant. I wondered if she was the mother I’d seen in 2016.
Eventually she jumped down from the tree and we followed her for a while as she stalked around, perhaps thinking about a late-morning breakfast, or maybe she was just looking for a more comfortable spot to sleep. At one point we stopped the truck to watch her in another tree she’d jump up on, and she soon jumped down and walked right toward us. I was sitting in the back of the truck, and she circled around the back, within just a few feet of me. There is nothing better than having such an amazing creature decide to go so close to you that you can almost reach out and touch them (warning: NEVER do that!).
Soon we followed her into some very tall grass, and after turning off the truck for a minute to watch her, we tried to follow again but the truck would not start. She disappeared into the grass as we watched. It took some time for another truck to reach us, and by then she was gone. It was ok, we’d had a great sighting.
Later, after breakfast, some of us sat at camp with Hobbs and other guides and talked for a long time about hunting in Botswana. I was very glad to hear that Hobbs was very much against hunting, and that trophy hunting was now illegal in most of Botswana, except for in private, fenced in camps where the animals are restocked. Disgusting. If any trophy hunters are reading this, do me a favor and jump in front of a train. I won’t miss you.
Anyway, I eventually told Hobbs about the mother leopard I’d seen at Shinde in 2016, and asked him if this was the same one. He knew her well, and he said that yes, this was her. Then came the bad news. The cub had not survived. She loved that cub, and I was so sad to hear that he did not survive. Hobbs didn’t know what happened, just that it eventually was gone. Even worse, she’d had a cub again in 2017, and that one did not survive either. Hobbs was especially unhappy about this, he said it should have survived, as it had gotten very big. Later that day, Hobbs told me they thought the mother had had a fight with two males in the area, and that in the confusion her cub had gotten lost. She kept returning to the same area to look for him with no success. But no one knows for sure what happened. Maybe he got scared and ran off and something else got him. No one knows.
I would see her again the next morning while driving with G. and A.T. again. And, as of now, that is the last that I’ve seen or heard of her. I went back to Shinde in 2019 and did not see her, and this year I went to Splash Camp (in the same area) and did not see her. I didn’t ask about her, as I’ve been afraid to hear bad news.
I have a trip scheduled for March 2021, and I’ll be going to the same area yet again. Fingers crossed, I hope to see her again, and I hope she’s had good luck with her cubs.