Despite humans making a huge obsessive fuss about sex, mother nature shows her true priorities.
I heard a nice story about leopards when I lived in Israel. We visited an oasis nature reserve called Ein Gedi. There was a centre where staff live, surrounded by a 10-foot chain link fence to keep animals from scavenging in the dustbins. They told us that a few nights earlier, there had been a commotion outside and they all rushed out to find a leopard holding the centre's pet cat in its jaws. It saw them, dropped the dead cat, and was over the fence and away.
Well, shame about Tiddles, but these guys were really excited about the leopard, as they were incredibly rare and most of the staff had only ever seen pug-marks. And they knew that leopards always return to claim a kill, even if disturbed. So they put the cat on top of one of the dumpsters outside the kitchen window, and retired inside with a video camera and tripod to await its return. But having switched to "record", the cameraman couldn't get the cat in his field of vision. Nor could anyone else. Had they been so stupid as to set up at the wrong window?
When they went outside, the cat had gone. The leopard had got back over, collected its supper, and vanished in the time it had taken them to get to the kitchen.
Sam - a nice story, they certainly are formidable. The male leopard's reaction speed in the video was very impressive. As you say, a matter of priorities.
Late to this sorry, we stayed with friends in Kenya for several weeks a couple of times in the nineties and a friend of theirs had a plane and took us into the Masai Mara. We had our own Landcruiser and set off and the first stop was when a leopard took its prey up a tree in front of us, it was a rare sight and our friends said that in all the years that they had lived there they had never seen a Leopard with its kill, so we were very priviledged and the only people there, though th word got out about twenty minutes later and the sight was overun with safari people, but that made no difference to a magic moment.
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Despite humans making a huge obsessive fuss about sex, mother nature shows her true priorities.
I heard a nice story about leopards when I lived in Israel. We visited an oasis nature reserve called Ein Gedi. There was a centre where staff live, surrounded by a 10-foot chain link fence to keep animals from scavenging in the dustbins. They told us that a few nights earlier, there had been a commotion outside and they all rushed out to find a leopard holding the centre's pet cat in its jaws. It saw them, dropped the dead cat, and was over the fence and away.
Well, shame about Tiddles, but these guys were really excited about the leopard, as they were incredibly rare and most of the staff had only ever seen pug-marks. And they knew that leopards always return to claim a kill, even if disturbed. So they put the cat on top of one of the dumpsters outside the kitchen window, and retired inside with a video camera and tripod to await its return. But having switched to "record", the cameraman couldn't get the cat in his field of vision. Nor could anyone else. Had they been so stupid as to set up at the wrong window?
When they went outside, the cat had gone. The leopard had got back over, collected its supper, and vanished in the time it had taken them to get to the kitchen.
Sam - a nice story, they certainly are formidable. The male leopard's reaction speed in the video was very impressive. As you say, a matter of priorities.
Late to this sorry, we stayed with friends in Kenya for several weeks a couple of times in the nineties and a friend of theirs had a plane and took us into the Masai Mara.
We had our own Landcruiser and set off and the first stop was when a leopard took its prey up a tree in front of us, it was a rare sight and our friends said that in all the years that they had lived there they had never seen a Leopard with its kill, so we were very priviledged and the only people there, though th word got out about twenty minutes later and the sight was overun with safari people, but that made no difference to a magic moment.
Wiggia - I bet that was a sight to remember forever. Even on video their speed, strength and agility are impressive.
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