Every drive has its ebbs and flows- moments of pure excitement, moments of tranquillity, moments of chaos and moments of calm.
One specific morning in the not-so-distant past included a lot of the above-mentioned feelings. The morning started off with us heading into one of the more picturesque areas of the reserve the southwestern grasslands. With the intention of finding a cheetah, arguably one of our less frequent predator sightings, we scoured the open grasslands with very little, to no, luck we decided to cut our losses and make our way into the territory of a well-known but elusive leopard, the Ndzanzeni Female.
This female is a success story all in herself, being born as a single cub to the Riverbank 3:3 female in early 2012.
The Ndzanzeni Female’s territory is right in the southeastern corner of Londolozi. Given its distance from camp, this particular area isn’t driven as frequently as others on the reserve which results in us seeing this particular female less than a few of the others.
With sightings of her being few and far between, we decided to take another gamble and see what the remainder of the morning had to offer. Although I would like to tell you how we spent hours tracking her with an eventual sighting, it was in fact the complete opposite. However, sometimes luck is on your side. As we were about to call it a day to start making our way back towards camp for breakfast, tracker Life Sibuyi pointed up ahead. Turning back towards to vehicle, he announced “there is a leopard crossing the road”. At this time of year, during the summer months, the grass in this area is extremely long. As we got closer, all we could see was the tip of her tail as she was walking away from us.
As we followed her through the long grass, Life and I looked at each other and simultaneously blurted out “she’s got cubs”. We knew this from the prominent milk pouch that she had. A milk pouch is a distended or low-hanging saggy belly that indicates lactation. Excitement grew as she continued to walk through the grass, with Life directing us through.
A previous litter of the Ndzanzeni Female that was kept in some boulders not too far from where we were following her.
As we followed her through the grass fairly late in the morning, we were all in absolute hope that she was going to lead us back to where she was keeping her little one(s). This was both unfortunately and fortunately the case. Unfortunately, she did not lead us back to where she was denning her cubs at the time. But instead, we were fortunate enough to witness the pure patience of a leopard, as she was trying to hunt an impala. Even though our sights were set on viewing a leopard with her cubs, we were able to spend a fair amount of time with the Ndzanzeni Female as she had her own sights set on a herd of impala.
The Ndzanzeni Female uses the height advantage of a fallen Marula to scan for potential prey.
Thankful for a morning of luck, we left her in her patient ambush of a meandering herd of impala and headed in the direction of camp.
I am extremely fascinated with this specific leopard having cubs. The reason is, that the Ndzanzeni Female is the last surviving female of the ‘Royal Family’ of leopards at Londolozi. Meaning that she is a direct descendent of the first leopard viewable from a vehicle on Londolozi, the Mother Leopard.
The Mother Leopard and one of her cubs
As leopard lineages are only tracked through female leopards, the Ndzanzeni Female is our last hope of continuing the direct lineage from the Mother Leopard. Although she has raised a cub to independence, the Tortoise Pan Male, unfortunately, the lineage line ends with males.
As a result, we are all holding onto serious hope that one of the cubs in this new litter is a female. So that she can continue the Mother Leopard lineage. The team of rangers will most likely be spending a fair bit of time down in the southeastern parts of the reserve, searching the area intently for both new dens and den sights that the Ndzanzeni female has used before.
Hopefully, fairly soon I can confirm that we have found the den and that one of the cubs is a female. Holding thumbs!
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Fantastic news Ross related to the Ndzanzeni female’s cubs, even though they’ve yet to be seen. I’m optimistic that someone will discover her den and spot one or two little furry bodies.
Hi Denise, we too are very optimistic and hopefully we can update you soon.
Thanks for the update! What an exciting development. Let’s keep fingers crossed, that we get another female in the long line of descendants of ‘Mother’. Waiting,in anticipation.
I didn’t realize that you don’t follow the male lineage. Beautiful pictures as always.
Ross, thanks for the update and wonderful pictures.
Hello Ross, I do hope that she haa a little female in her litter to go on with the Mother Leopard’s Royal Family! How exciting! I am sure you can barely wait and see! If she had twin sisters that would be super
Ross that will be fantastic news about the cubs, so so precious and we hope that there will be a female to carry out the lineage. She is a beautiful leopardess and one of my favorites.
What a beauty this leopard is! I absolutely love the photos of her.
Let’s hope that her lineage can continue with a little girl leopard.
Exciting news, Ross – she is my no.1 favourite leopard, having first seen her at just 1 month old, then again with a 2 month old Tortoise Pan. She’s lost so many litters of cubs since then that I’m not overly optimistic. On the brighter side, I think her mother (DRB) was 15 when she had Ndzanzeni, so at 11 she’s still got time. I shall keep thumbs and everything crossed again!
Hi Suzanne, raising cubs is no easy task but I’m keeping my fingers crossed that she can raise this litter to independence.
Good news indeed. Nice to see one of my photos! This was from a sighting with her cub (grew up to be Tortoise Pan male) and the Inyathini male.
Thanks Ross! I really wish the Ndzanzeni female all the success in her endeavor to raise the new cubs, and fingers crossed that there are female cubs so as to keep the lineage of the Mother leopard alive and well!