Despite being pushed out of his riverfront territory by the Marthly male, the Camp Pan male is still a force to be reckoned with among the leopards of central Londolozi. We hardly see the Tugwaan male anymore (also known as the Short Tail or Bicycle Crossing Male); he operates to our South and East these days, we think in part due to pressure from the enormous Camp Pan male.
The King of Londolozi in his day; an enormous male whose offspring still inhabit the reserve.
A large male leopard will never miss an opportunity to steal a kill from a female leopard. At almost twice the size of the females, large males have no difficulty in forcing them off their meal. It is not that the males are lazy, as they can be unjustly labelled, it is simply a smart and economic use of energy, using size to bully their way to food instead of going through the arduous and often unsuccessful act of actually hunting for it.
The Tamboti female and her cub were recently found by tracker Bennet Mathonsi and ranger Richard Ferrier on an impala kill in the South East of Londolozi.
The Tamboti female inhabited the south-eastern sections of Londolozi, having a large part of her territory along the Maxabene Riverbed.
By evening, who should be there as well but the Camp Pan male, hogging the kill for himself. The female and her cub already had full bellies, so probably weren’t as disappointed as they may have been had they not had anything to eat yet.
We arrived in the sighting late in the afternoon. The kill was still on the ground and all three leopards were lying down snoozing.
The cub of the Tamboti female is in the foreground while the Camp Pan male reclines near the kill in the background.
Movement in the bushes to our left announced the arrival of a small hyena. The Tamboti cub was first to react, scurrying up a nearby knobthorn
tree. The Camp Pan male jumped up next, grabbing the kill by the neck and heading straight for the same knobthorn. The cub meanwhile jump down and scurried off into the bushes, followed by its mother.
The Tamboti cub clings to the acacia branch to escape the hyena that was approaching.
The hyena that was approaching was young and too little to pose a real threat to the male leopard, and would most likely not have been able to force the Camp Pan male off his kill, but I don’t think that the leopard actually saw the hyena properly and was unable to accurately gauge its size. He most likely caught its scent and reacted instinctively to protect the kill. Next thing he had leapt up into a nearby Acacia, hoisting the kill high out of reach of the hyena below.
A second. much larger hyena appeared shortly, but with the kill already safe, the two hyenas could do nothing but sniff around for scraps, of which they found very few.
Photographed and Written by James Tyrrell
There are hyenas that match in size the Camp’an male or Marthly male leopards? Band there are female leopard that nave a size colse to campana?
Always a pleasure to read about my favorite felines. What amazingly strong cats these are. Thank you for sharing.
James, your photography makes my heart beat with anticipation of my next visit, next year. I can only hope the magnificent Camp Pan Male will be around bullying every leopard in sight so I can once more gaze upon his awesomeness.
We were fortunate enough during our last visit to watch Camp Pan take an impala up a tree. It was amazing to see the strength and agility this magnificent cat has. Thank you for the video, everything happens so fast it is hard to get it all with a still camera.
always good to see Camp Pan doing well!