It is always a pleasure and a privilege to watch the Camp Pan Male Leopard hunt. More often than not he is an extremely successful apex predator and both his enormous size and considerable experience have given him the edge in maintaining his condition, strength, patrolling intensity and hence his territory.
The King of Londolozi in his day; an enormous male whose offspring still inhabit the reserve.
He still remains as one of Londolozi’s most dominant male leopards and in the below sighting he demonstrates just why this is so. Discovering him on an afternoon drive, he crouches in the grass as a nearby herd of impala draw closer…
Dappled rosettes in the long dry grass of the Autumn veld.
Waiting until the last moment, he leaps at the impala with a burst of intensity.
Outstretched arms and claws reach for the impalas rump split seconds before he brings it down in a cloud of dust and dirt.
Funnily enough, shortly after the filming concluded, this ‘might’ leopard suffered the misfortune of dropping his hard earned efforts out of the tree and was forced to repeat the strenuous process of rehoisting the carcass.
Filmed by: James Crookes
Photographed by: Adam Bannister
Beauty photos and leopard!!! Thank You !
Rich – how much would an Impala, such as that one, weigh? At least he caught this one himself!
I’m guessing 40kg or a bit more, and he hadn’t eaten more than a few bites off the rump. A real show of strength!
As good a hunter as Camp Pan is, let’s not forget how his size and weight enable to succesfully rob other leopards of their kills on a regular basis. Although this may appear to be a lazy strategy to some, it is simply him conserving energy. Why go through the often strenuous, time-consuming and potentially dangerous process of hunting when he could simply force a smaller leopard off their kill?
I recall a period last year during which he robbed something like five kills off his own daughter, the Mashaba female, in little over a month.
A great leopard to spend time with!
Thanks for posting the video.. This was truly amazing. I sat in the car next to you all as this was happening.. This happened 45 minutes into my first day londolozi.. It set the standard for every day to follow… and it only got better.. Thanks for the video.. so much better than the stills I have..
It’s a pleasure Tim. What a start to your experience at Londolozi! It was the first time I had such a clear view of a leopard hoisting a kill, so I was just as excited and was so glad to be able to capture it on video.
Thanks for posting. He is a delight to watch!
always amazes me how they hoist such heavy prey up a tree… STRENGTH IS UNBELIEVABLE
It is incredible isn’t it!
Thank you! What a treat to be able to see Camp Pan in action 🙂
Oh how I wish I was back at Londolozi but thank you for sharing the video with us all…. I loved my “meeting” of Camp Pan in the river bed with Adam and Solly a few weeks ago….A truly magnificent animal
What an amazing feat. Too bad he had to do it twice. Would it be safe to say that the impala weighed almost as much as him?
Thanks again for another great blog.
Hi Rich,
I trust you are well! Great sighting and photograpy. I cannot wait to get back there in September.
Kind regards,
Ted.