Leopard and cub Big Five Day

We left camp as the gates opened at 06h00 and traveled south along the tar H4-2 with the intention of going to Komatipoort to get a Vodacom sim as MTN has been offline for some time.We turned onto the S130 (Gomondwane Loop), we had coffee and rusks at  Froggy pan which we have named after Prince the frothy Tree Frog who we released here last year  (see last years Blog).

We continued along the S130 and at the dry Pan half way along we found a troop of very agitated Baboon. We watched for a while and then saw a Leopard with a cub, the baboons also saw it, and the big male baboons attacked and chased the Leopards. The cub was chased into a bush (not Tree), while the mother was chased by the male Baboons right in front of us and across the road for some distance and out of sight.

We sat in the car right next to the bush with the cub high up in the top reaches barely visible. The male Baboons eventually returned to where the cub was hiding. We expected the baboons to attack and kill the cub, they made an effort to dislodge the cub.

By this time another car arrived and saw what was going on, every time the Baboons tried to get the cub it hissed loudly and we made a noise to try and chase the Baboons away from the cub.

Eventually the Baboons moved off, we continued to sit and watch expecting the mother to come back. We sat there for at least 2 hours waiting. The cub eventually came down and slunk into the long grass out of sight. We stayed at least another hour before moving off without a further sighting. We only managed 1 or 2 photos as the visibility was bad, but hey its stored up there somewhere.

We hope we saved the Leopard cubs life and that mother and cub were reunited.

Saw Buffalo, plenty Elephant, Rhino and finally Lion, after a long drought, pretty close to the road at the Gezantfombi dam.

This is all we could see of the terrified Leopard cub

After he came down and slinking away