Watch a leopard make a kill, and the hunt is only half the story.

The other half is everything that comes after.

The Nkoveni female stands firm over the carcass of a big male impala. One of the few hunts that went her way.

She catches her breath first. Then, almost immediately, she drags the carcass. Not far, but out of the open, into thickets or under a bush, away from plain sight. This is not incidental. A carcass visible in a clearing is a signal to every vulture circling overhead and every opportunist moving through the area. Getting it into cover buys time. She will either feed there or drag it closer to a large tree she intends to hoist into before she starts.

Then she feeds, typically starting at the rump, recovering energy and nutrition quickly before anything else arrives to complicate matters. From there, if time allows, she will pluck the fur from the hide, open the belly cavity, and work through the organs: the liver, heart, kidneys, spleen and lungs, which are among the most nutritious parts of the carcass. The stomach and intestines come out next and are left behind. They are packed with partially digested plant material that a carnivore cannot use, and more importantly, they are heavy. Removing them can reduce the overall weight of the carcass by several kilograms.

The leopard casts a wary eye in the direction of the skulking cheetah before settling down feed.

And then, typically as the light begins to fade, she positions the carcass between her front legs, grabs the throat in her jaw, and launches herself off the ground, starting to climb. One leg over the other, claws hooking into bark, the full dead weight hanging below her as she hauls herself vertically up a tree trunk. It is one of the more extraordinary physical feats you will ever see in the bush. And it is something no other large predator in Africa does.

That is the process in an ideal world, where she has time and no immediate pressure. In reality, the moment a hyena stumbles through or a lion appears, the sequence collapses entirely. She will attempt to hoist immediately, before feeding, before gutting, whether the carcass is light enough or not. The pressure changes everything.

Not lions. Not cheetah. Only leopards.

The question is why. And the answer, once you understand the position leopards occupy in the predator hierarchy out here, is really quite simple.

The problem with being a leopard

Leopards are exceptional hunters. Their kill rate is among the highest of any of the large cats, their prey range is broader than any other predator on earth, and their ability to operate across virtually every habitat type has made them the most widespread wild cat species in the world. On paper, they have a lot going for them.

What they do not have is size. A female leopard in the Sabi Sand weighs somewhere between 35 and 60 kilograms. The average male sits between 60 and 90 kilograms, with exceptional individuals pushing beyond that. Against a coalition of lions, or even a determined clan of hyenas, a leopard, however capable, has no real option but to concede. Lions will take a kill by sheer presence. Hyenas will mob until the leopard abandons what it has worked for.

According to research published by Panthera through their Sabi Sands Leopard Project (the longest-running and most comprehensive leopard study ever undertaken, conducted right here in this landscape), leopards lose around 20 per cent of their kills to kleptoparasitism, the scientific term for having a kill stolen by another animal. Hyenas alone are responsible for approximately half of those stolen kills.

The hoist is the solution.

What hoisting actually is

Hoisting is the act of carrying a carcass into a tree and wedging or draping it in the branches, typically well above the reach of any ground-based competitor. The carcass is held in the mouth by the throat or neck, with the body hanging between the leopard’s legs as it climbs. The whole operation requires the animal to grip a vertical tree trunk with its claws while generating enough upward momentum to overcome the combined weight of itself and its prey.

A leopard will usually be able to hoist slightly more than its own body weight, an incredible feat when you consider that weight is being carried in the mouth, with the carcass hanging between its legs, as it digs only its claws into the bark of a vertical tree trunk. The Panthera Sabi Sands research found that leopards hoisted just over 50 per cent of their kills, and tended to hoist prey that weighed between 40 and 140 per cent of their own body mass. Smaller kills could be eaten on the ground in a single sitting without much risk. Larger kills were often simply too heavy to move.

For more detail on this process, we covered it in our earlier blog on leopard kill behaviour.

The physical adaptations that make it possible

A leopard’s body is built for this in a way that a lion’s or cheetah’s simply is not. The shoulder and neck musculature is disproportionately developed; you can see it in the breadth of a leopard’s chest and the thickness of the neck, particularly in males. The forelimbs are short and powerful relative to the body, which keeps the centre of gravity low during the climb. The protractable claws, kept sharp by regular raking, hook deeply into bark and provide traction on surfaces that would defeat most animals.

The long tail works as a counterweight, helping the leopard manage balance with a swinging carcass below it. Watch a hoisting leopard carefully, and you will see the tail moving almost constantly during the climb, making constant small adjustments. For more on the specific physiology that makes leopards such exceptional climbers, we covered this in depth in our blog on leopard climbing physiology.

The jaw strength is in a category of its own. Carrying fifty kilograms of dead weight in the mouth, by the neck, up several metres of vertical tree, while also managing the mechanics of climbing, it is the kind of strength that you cannot grasp until you see it in action.

Why trees specifically, and which trees

Not every tree works. A successful hoist requires a trunk with enough texture for claw purchase, branches positioned high enough to place the carcass out of reach, and ideally a fork or horizontal branch that can support the weight without it sliding off. Marula trees are a favourite at Londolozi; the broad, textured bark and the wide horizontal branching structure at height make them ideal. Schotia trees, jackalberries, and large leadwoods are also used regularly.

Often young leopards will use trees as vantage points to scan for hunting opportunities and keep an eye out for any threats. Here the Xinkhova female lounges in the shade on a sprawling branch of a Marula tree.

The height of the hoist matters. Hyenas cannot climb at all. Lions are too heavy and insufficiently adapted for serious vertical climbing. Wild dogs have no climbing ability. Getting a carcass to four or five metres effectively removes it from competition. However, other leopards can and do climb, which introduces a different problem.

The trade-off nobody talks about

Hoisting a carcass in an open marula makes it highly visible, a fact that can actually attract male leopards, who are quite happy to steal kills from females or younger leopards. A carcass in a tree, visible from a distance, sends a clear signal to any other leopard in the area.

This explains a finding from the Panthera research that initially seems counterintuitive: male leopards are much more likely to hoist kills than females. Female leopards are smaller and can be chased off a kill by a hungry male, whereas a dominant male is unlikely to have to defend his kill from another male of equivalent size. For a female, the calculus is more complex. She has more to lose by advertising the kill than he does.

This is also why the choice of tree matters beyond just physical suitability. A hoist in thick vegetation that is difficult to spot from a distance is preferable to one in an open area, even if the open tree is physically easier to climb. The leopard, consciously or not, is managing visibility as much as height.

What it looks like when it goes wrong

Not every hoist succeeds. Young leopards learning the technique will sometimes make three or four attempts on a carcass before abandoning it, either from exhaustion or because the weight is simply too much. A carcass dropped from height may then be lost entirely to waiting scavengers. Experienced leopards have been watched re-hoisting a carcass that slipped during the climb, climbing down, repositioning the grip, and going again.

Cubs may learn by watching. A mother will make the hoist while her cub watches from below or, sometimes, climbs up alongside her with considerably less grace and efficiency. The mechanics of where to grip, how to position the body, which branches to aim for- all of this is learned, not instinctive. A young leopard’s first attempts are usually a reliable source of both admiration and mild anxiety.

The number that puts it in perspective

Consider that a male leopard in the Sabi Sand weighs somewhere around 80 kilograms on a good day. An adult female impala weighs 40 to 55 kilograms. A male impala can reach 60 to 80 kilograms. The leopard is routinely moving prey that matches or exceeds its own body weight, straight up a vertical surface, using only its jaw and its claws.

The Ximungwe female attempts to hoist an impala ram carcass! These animals’ strength is off the charts! As a joke, I tried something similar in the gym. Needless to say, gravity won…

No other large predator in this ecosystem attempts this. Not because they lack intelligence, but because they lack the specific combination of muscle architecture, claw structure, and proportional build that makes it physically possible. The leopard’s hoist is not a behaviour that happens to be useful. It is the product of a body that was shaped, over millions of years, precisely to do it.

The next time you watch a leopard disappear into a tree with something in its mouth, take a second before you reach for your camera. What you are looking at is one of the more remarkable physical feats in the animal kingdom. It just happens very quickly, and the leopard makes it look easy.

Research data sourced from the Panthera Sabi Sands Leopard Project. Field observations from the rangers and trackers of Londolozi Game Reserve.