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James Tyrrell

Alumni

James had hardly touched a camera when he came to Londolozi, but his writing skills that complemented his Honours degree in Zoology meant that he was quickly snapped up by the Londolozi blog team. An environment rich in photographers helped him develop the ...

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on Is the Nkoveni Female Expecting Again?

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It is great news if she is pregnant. It is always lovely to have cubs around.

No viewings of Nkoveni female last week. although we saw the Nkoveni Young Female 2x.

Exactly! She’s been very scarce…

It sounds as if she is either pregnant, or else has been trying hard to be pregnant again. Very interesting. Keep us updated on this, James, will you? Wendy M

James, we will be there in 2020.
Hope she still has cubs with her

So do we!!

Good strategy, to mate with as many males as possible, so that the males all assume the cubs are theirs and will leave them alone.

What a fascinating blog entry, James! Looking forward to a follow up!

How do all of you keep track of who’s who in the zoo (so to speak) with litters coming with such frequency across so very many potential mothers? And determining who of all their “partners” is the father much be a real puzzle! We had thought that the number of potential males was dwindling but venturing beyond Londolozi certainly expands the gene pool. Do you work with neighboring Ranger groups to keep these things straight?

Yes we are in contact with other rangers in neighbouring reserves to keep track of what’s happening.
Knowing the paternity is unfortunately impossible without a DNA test since the females mate with multiple males. Occasionally we will see a female only mating with one male, so have a fair idea of the likelihood, but in this instance the Nkoveni female has mated with at least 3 males that we know of, which fogs the issue somewhat…

So good to learn that yet another leopard may be in the family way. Londolozi seems to be the billboard for successful breeding and subsequent raising of cubs to adulthood, save for the random killing of cubs by unrelated males i.e. Tortoise Pan killing Mashaba’s cubs….. will be waiting for the next installment.

looks good

Hopefully she’ll give birth soon! Which Londolozi leopards are currently the most successful at rearing cubs?

The original Mother Leopard apparently raised 12 to independence. Almost unheard of…

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