While driving along the banks of the dry Maxabene river bed recently, we happened across a leopard resting up in a pan. Tracker Shadrack Mkabela raised his hand swiftly to signal to me to stop the vehicle. None of us on the vehicle could see what Shadrack had spotted but given the beaming smile on his face as he turned to look back at us, I instantly knew what his next word would be; “Leopard!” he exclaimed, pointing up ahead.
As the rest of us excitedly perked our heads up to see the leopard ourselves, which was about 50m ahead, Shadrack called out again; “And another leopard!”. We couldn’t believe our luck but just 20 metres to the left of the first leopard was a second one sitting up in the long grass. As we edged closer and began enjoying the sighting we realised that one of the cats was the Mashaba female and the other the Ndzanzeni young male.
The Mashaba female continues to expand her territory down into the central sections of the reserve.
Londolozi's oldest territorial female. Distinguished by her nose spot, this Sunsetbend matriarch's legacy lives on through her daughters.
Immediately, this reminded me that just six weeks ago, the same young male was found to be the culprit in the death of the Mashaba female’s latest litter of three and ironically, that the den site in which the three cubs were found and killed, was a stone’s throw away from where we now found ourselves. Yet despite that fact, the two leopards seemed quite comfortable in each other’s company, so much so that the Mashaba Female was even showing signs of wanting to mate with the young male.
The Ndzanzeni young male is still too young to be territorial, yet it would still be in the Mashaba female’s best interests to mate with him, just in case he does end up establishing himself.
As humans, we sat there and typically put an emotional spin on things. We began to ask ourselves why the Mashaba Female would even tolerate the presence of this young male, let alone show that she would want to mate with such a villain – at least he would be a villain in a human context. The very individual that eradicated her latest progeny. If the same scene was witnessed between humans it would surely end with the female unleashing herself in a fit of rage over the young male, even after all this time. It wasn’t long though before I caught myself and realised that these wild animals operate on a completely different, much simpler and more natural thought process than ourselves and yet so often, we prescribe human qualities to them which are, at the end of the day, only applicable to us and only confuse the way we view the natural world.
Despite being young, the Ndzanzani young male has often been seen displaying territorial behaviour.
If you take a moment to think about what was playing out in front us that morning, without the human element of emotion, it all made perfect sense. To begin with, the young male killing the cubs in the first place wasn’t a crime. It is the most natural behaviour of a male leopard to deny any cub other than his own the right to liven. By killing a female’s cubs, it shortly brings her back into oestrus which gives the male an opportunity to mate with her himself. Secondly, the Mashaba female, now tolerating the presence of the Ndzanzeni young male and wanting to mate with him is not a tale of forgiveness or fatal attraction. Through these events, she would have identified the young male as a potential dominant male in the area and would have instinctively wanted to mate with him so that her next set of cubs would then in fact be protected by and not killed by him. The ultimate objective of all these animals is just simply to pass their genes on by successfully reproducing, at whatever cost. Emotion plays no part in it.
New territory for the Mashaba female means mating with any male she may encounter, to placate him into thinking he is the father of her cubs.
The plot does thicken slightly though because the Ndzanzeni young male, at just over 2 years old, is not yet territorial and is unlikely to mate with any female until he is about 3 years old (at least this is what the textbooks will tell you), and at least while we were watching these animals, the young male paid little attention to the female’s subtle advances. In addition to this, the Inyathini male is still the reigning territorial male over that area and I doubt he would take it lightly that another male is mating with females on his turf, even considering that the Ndzanzeni young male is in fact his own offspring. However, that is besides the point.
The fact is that we have to be careful when interpreting these wild animals behaviours, because we can so easily view it through a filter of our own complicated emotions. This is what sometimes makes it difficult to understand why the animals do what they do, but I suppose that element of mystery is a large part of what draws us back into the wilderness time and time again.
I understand the law of the jungle is not based on emotion. I do ask where was the Inyathini male while his cubs were being killed and does he just ignore the death of his cubs and extract no revenge? Or is it simply that with the law of the jungle there are no pay backs. I have seen video of some animals going after others after an attack against one of their own so am I right to then assume since Leopards are not pack hunters this is not the case. Finally why would the Inyathini male not mate again with the Mashaba female or has he proven himself unable to protect his Cubs and she knows that. Can you explain
The Inyathini male has a huge territory so was most likely miles away.
I imagine he has no way of knowing who the culprit was, and since males do not really play any part in raising their offspring, his interest in cubs pre-independence is likely minimal. Given that the Ndzanzeni young male is also most likely the Inyathini males son, and there has been relatively peaceful interaction between them before, it was unlikely anything would ever happen unless the Ndzanzeni young male happened to be caught in the act.
The Inyathini male will almost certainly mate with the Mashaba female if he has not done so already. His huge territory may just mean they have not come together yet. Watch out for an update here, as I suspect their mating is inevitable…
Mashaba female stories always seem to bring out the human emotion interpretation.
Thank you Chris. I believe that Instinct plays a powerful part. A concept I know humans don’t fully understand.
Hi Gawie,
Agreed!
Well written for a first post. I am keeping fingers crossed that I will have an opportunity to see either or both of these beautiful leopards in exactly one month during my first visit to Londolozi. Cheers!!
I know this is off topic but I am wondering what has happened to the Tamboti young female since she has lost her mother. I have a wonderful picture of the two of them together.
Hi Leslie,
Good question. She’s alive and well. We’ll run an update on her soon.
Best regards,
James
This was most probably the saddest sighting we’ve ever encountered at Londolozi, witnessing him feeding on those cubs ….. I know it’s nature but my heart still broke ?
Thanks for the update Chris! We continue to be amazed by the resilience of the beautiful Mashaba!
Actually it’s possible seeing dominant males tolerating their sons who are mating with females. Some months ago the Makhotini male and his son, the White Dam male have mated with the same female(called the Msuthlu female if I remember well) at the same sighting , and the father showed no aggression towards the son. This was reported by Sabi Sabi
Hi Gabriele,
It certainly does happen, and we’ve seen it with the Camp Pan male (father) and Tu Tones male (son) here before.
The Inyathini male’s territory is so big there may even be room for two in the next couple of years…
Maybe she’ll mate with them, and then with one of the more established males like the Flat Rock or Inyanthini?
Hi Callum, I think she’s already been seen mating with the Flat Rock male. Good call.
These animals are on the inborn, instinctive, survival mode; whereas humans tend to overlay their emotions which distorts wildlife’s reality. Neither one can help themselves….
Chris, thank you for this enlightenment into why the male leopard killed the cubs. It makes me feel much better about the female perhaps allowing him to mate with her. We do have to remember not to put human traits and emotions on these beautiful creatures. It is all about protecting their species and genes.
How is his mother doing?
She’s well Alessandra. She was seen three days ago lying in a Jackalberry tree. She hasn’t been found too much of late but with so much incredible game viewing on other parts of the reserve not many vehicles have been driving on her territory.
I found this particularly interesting as 3 weeks ago we saw Mashaba moving very purposefully and vocalizing, then soon after we saw the Ndzanzeni young male also scent marking and vocalizing. Although they must have been quite close they didn’t meet up. Despite the cub killing, he’s still 1 of my favourites – the 1st time we came in 2010 we saw the Dudley Riverbank female, then I next saw her 2 years later with her female cub, who was only 1 month old! 4 years later I then saw her again, now called Ndzanzeni and suckling her own 2 month cubs. I have a lovely picture of him and it was wonderful to see him another 2 years on. And of course he is Londolozi royalty!
Great blog Chris. I agree, humans assign far to too much emotion to these animals. We want to humanize them but we’ve got to realize that they probably do not even know about our existence except when we interfere with nature.