I was treated to a very special viewing of a leopard whilst at Phinda. The Phinda game reserve until fairly recently was farmland in private ownership. Farmers saw leopards as animals which attacked their stock and would kill them given the opportunity. Indeed outside the reserve that is still the case. Kwazulu natal is has been divided into 5 areas and the government issues one permit for each area to allow leopards to be shot by big game hunters so the leopards are still much under threat. I was told last year one farmer killed to 1 year old cubs and their mother because he thought they were a threat to his live stock. All this has taught leopards to be very wary of man. They are very nervous creatures and are very rarely sighted and when they are the sightings are of a fleeting nature – certainly not long enough to get a photograph.
I was very privileged to go out with a ranger who knew his leopards and he found a leopard in a tree for me which was very unusual. I watched it from the 4 X 4 for about 45 minutes. Since all the Phinda leopards are tagged for the research program here and this leopard was not, it must have broken into the reserve. The ranger believed it was a young female about 18 months old who was about to be allowed to lead a separate life to its mother.
The ranger told me it was the best leopard sighting of his life. I was so fortunate to be there. Whilst at Phinda we saw a leopard every single day which we were told was exceptional.
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