This has been said at the start of every entry in this series, and it stays true. There is a weird kind of obsession that takes hold of people who spend any considerable time with leopards at Londolozi. Rangers who have been here for decades will still sit in complete silence, fixated on an animal in the tree above them, long after the guests have stopped asking questions. This series attempts to honour that obsession and the animals who caused it.
The King of Londolozi in his day; an enormous male whose offspring still inhabit the reserve.
Camp Pan 4:3 Male | Born 2000 | Died 2015 | Unknown Lineage
There were mornings, during the years when he held the territory around the Sand River, when a ranger new to Londolozi would come across his tracks in the road and radio in with a report of a lioness.
The paws of the Camp Pan Male were that large.
The Camp Pan male.
He was, by the assessment of almost everyone who spent time with him, the biggest leopard any of them had ever seen. Not just at Londolozi but anywhere. During the peak of his reign, from roughly 2007 to 2014, he patrolled his territory openly, down the roads, along the riverbanks, with none of the furtiveness typical of a male under pressure. He was dominant over a stretch of prime territory running from the Manyelethi River in the north to beyond the Maxabene in the south, overlapping the ranges of multiple females, and no other male in the area was prepared to test him seriously for the better part of a decade. He was distinctive in appearance beyond his size: battle-scarred across the face and with a forked tongue as the result of some injury or conflict that predated the records.
He was born around the year 2000 to a female called the Tavangumi Female, to the west of Londolozi on Singita. His father is believed to have been the Wallingford Male. He spent considerable time around a small waterhole called Camp Pan during his formative months, and the name followed him east. He followed the typical trajectory of a young male before pressing east onto Londolozi in 2007 and establishing himself almost overnight, displacing the Sparta 5:5 Male in the process.
No leopard holds territory for seven years in the Sabi Sand without being an exceptional hunter. The Camp Pan Male was that, and more. What set him apart beyond his hunting ability was an opportunism that his size made uniquely available to him. When a smaller leopard made a kill, he would often simply take it, not out of inability to hunt for himself, but because his size meant he could, and in a landscape where energy expenditure matters, a free meal is always the smarter option.
The most striking demonstration of what his physical presence meant in the landscape came in a sighting near Taylor’s Crossing on the Sand River. A pack of wild dogs had made a kill and were feeding. The Camp Pan Male had been lying in the sedge along the riverbank, watching. When the moment was right, he moved. He walked in and took the kill. Seventeen wild dogs, and he simply took it. No chase, no prolonged confrontation. His presence alone was sufficient.
Camp Pan Male climbing tree up to impala hoist.
His reign was not without challenge.
The first serious test came in 2011 from the Dudley Riverbank 5:5 Male, a younger and increasingly bold individual pressing in from the east. The Camp Pan Male withstood that challenge. On one occasion, the 5:5 Male was found cowering up a telephone pole on the eastern boundary. An old injury to a toe on one of the Camp Pan Male’s front feet left a tell-tale scuff mark in his tracks that experienced trackers could identify at a glance; he also left tracks across an extraordinary distance on his nightly patrols, frequently appearing kilometres away from where rangers had last followed him.
With the arrival of the Marthly Male in 2010, territory began to compress from the north. By 2014, pressure from the Piva Male pushing in from the south had become too much. The Camp Pan Male ceded his hold on the territory and withdrew, becoming increasingly nomadic. Old territorial males pushed to the margins rarely recover. Their ranges shrink, their appearances grow fewer, and they fade from the records gradually.
The last confirmed evidence of the Camp Pan Male on Londolozi was a set of his unmistakable tracks, followed by the senior trackers across the full width of the reserve and over the eastern boundary into the neighbouring property. He was presumed to have died sometime in 2015, at approximately fifteen years of age.
What he left behind was remarkable even by the standards of the most successful males on Londolozi.
Over the course of his territorial reign, he is believed to have fathered more than fifteen litters with at least six different females. Among his recorded offspring were the Tutlwa Female, the Tu Tones Male, the Mashaba Female, who would go on to become arguably the most famous leopard Londolozi has ever known, and the Makhotini Male.
His relationship with the Tu Tones Male was one of the more unusual dynamics in the recorded history of the reserve. Rather than driving his adult son out of the territory as most dominant males do, the Camp Pan Male tolerated his presence to a degree that surprised those who witnessed it. The two males were observed at the same kills. They were seen mating with the same female simultaneously. It remains one of the few documented cases at Londolozi of a dominant male maintaining what amounted to a shared territorial arrangement with one of his own male offspring.
Tamboti, Cub and Camp Pan Male Leopard – Lucien Beaumont
His lineage of origin remains unknown. Unlike the Mother Leopard’s descendants, who carry a traceable maternal line stretching back to 1979, the Camp Pan Male arrived from outside of Londolozi. What is known is what he became while he was here and what he produced, and by any measure, that is considerable.
He walked through the tall grass, perhaps trying to flush prey such as a duiker or steenbok. He was unsuccessful and eventually gave in to the heat, finding a shady patch nearby. That evening, one of the other vehicles saw him feeding on a monkey, so at least he got a bit of nourishment!
When rangers who worked at Londolozi during his prime are asked which leopard they remember most vividly, his name comes up more often than almost any other. Not because he was the most frequently seen, or the most reliably located. But because when you did find him, and he turned to look at you, the scale of him was something that took a moment to fully process.
There was, by all accounts, simply no other leopard quite like him.
Thanks for that interesting bit of information. Always nice to get some stories of legends of past days.
I’ll never forget the first time I saw him. He was walking on the road directly at our vehicle. I was so impressed by the ripples of muscle on his broad shoulders. I was fortunate to get a fantastic photo, highlighting his obvious strength.
Hi Sean, you are a star in writing eulogies! While reading through the leopards genealogies, I remember some of them clearly and he is one among them, being also the Mashaba female father. I remember of him most of all because his behaviour towards his son. His size and look- a shiver,!- more alike a lion than a leopard, of someone who has nothing to fear about, looks absolutely wordless… thank you Sean!
Thanks for the trip down memory lane, Sean. I remember him well – we saw him mating with the Nottens female on the 2nd game drive of our 1st trip, and have a wonderful photo of them. I was lucky enough to see him on many other occasions, he was truly magnificent. I think when the Anderson male arrived on Londoz he was even bigger?
Hi Sean, he certainly was a huge leopard and someone who makes his presence known just by his size. Legend in his own right. Father of the Mashaba female which everyone knows as she is a legend also in her own right. Thanks for this info of the The Camp Pan Male.
Thanks, Sean, for this interesting blog on the Camp Pan Male.
He must have been a really impressive animal. I guess that I saw him in 2013, however I am not quite sure that it was him.
But anyway, it’s so great to get so much information about my favourite animals.
Ps sorry I skipped ‘s and because of….
Dear Sean, what an informative story- and from the pics it was an impressive leopard. I saw Tutla and Tamboti, and Mashaba, for me also very special leopards. Time is running fast.
Hi LGR. Thank you so much for sorting out then putting up that very interesting blog on the large Camp Pan male or as he was known on busy MalaMala as the Princess Alice Pans male. I know he sure was a very handsome male to see and watch, but although we are now 11 long years since his suspected passing at the age of 15, having been born in 2000. Despite the sad fact that he is no longer around, but do you think it is possible that he would potentially be the same or a similar size to the massive Maxims male over there at all? It would have been so interesting to see if they and their sizes could be compared together. I don’t know what anyone else thought of him, but he didn’t look like a male to be messed with, as he was so much bigger then the other males. He was incredible. I also sure would have liked to have more about his parents and whether he had any possible litter mate siblings as well as any younger or older ones, too.
If you or your much more experienced work colleagues have got a good long record of his history, then I’d be very interested to know all about anything else that wasn’t mentioned in the blog. If some of your work colleagues have been rangers and guides for maybe thirty or fourty years now, then I’m sure they’re the ideal experts that you would want to talk to and ask about any other leopards that you didn’t know about or get to meet there in the past. It’ll be absolutely fascinating to know what they do today.
That large surely must have shocked a lot of rangers and guests by been found many kilometres or miles away from where he was last seen and viewed the night before or the previous day. It was so clear that he didn’t hang around in place due to where he was sometimes found the very next day. I find it quite hard to believe that his paw prints were mistaken for that of another predator owing to his impressive size at the time. It was interesting, but also very odd that he was so tolerant of his flesh and blood.
As I find these blogs mentioning other old leopards that are sadly no longer around there to this very day very fascinating indeed, it’ll be absolutely captivating to see which leopard will be next to have a blog and tribute written and paid out to them in their memory. To name but a few, old legends like the Rock Drift male, Hlarulini male, Short Tail male, Tjellahanga male, White Cloth female, Kapen female, Ngoboswan female, Tamboti female, Trollips Crossing female (mother of the White Cloth and Kapen females), Hlabatini female, Inkanye male, the single sons of the late Kikilezi female’s first and second litters (I have got no idea at all what happened to or became of them after they became independent), Emsagwen male, Bicycle Crossing male, Marthly male, Emsagweni female, Dudley female, Newington male, Rollercoaster female, and many other leopards like them are very sadly no longer around there to this very day, and though they were very special leopards, they certainly won’t be forgotten about but will be so well remembered very fondly. The Manyelethi male, Campbell Koppies female, Mlowathi female, Ostrich Koppies female, Hogvaal Jakklsdrarri female, Flockfield female and Lisbon male also ring alarm bells as well. Those are just some of the many other leopards that so tragically don’t exist there anymore. It’ll be very useful indeed if some of the other much more experienced rangers who have been working there for 3 to 4 or even more decades, will know all about. Then by using their good and extensive knowledge, it’ll make it a lot easier to write fascinating long blogs and memories on them & the very great lives they led. I’m in no doubt that once you’ve done blogs on all of the long late leopards and the lives they led, I bet you’ll next be doing blogs on the lions from the past there as well. Wouldn’t you? There will be a lot of individual lions to remember & write blogs about as well as remembering all of the individual prides and famous male lion coalitions that are no longer around at all. I know a lot of people will also be absolutely captivated by them. But I think there are a lot more good leopard blogs to write, come and read first of all, and especially the ones I mentioned above. It is difficult to realise that the tracks that the large Camp Pan male left behind him were easily mistaken for those of a lioness owing to their shear size. He didn’t do to badly, reaching 15 years of age.
Hope to hear from you shortly.
Robert 15.9.26
Wow, after reading your post, I understand why this male leopard is a Londolozi legend. I wish I could have known him, but in a strange way, I believe I do through his photos and your words. Thank you for this #2.
The Campaign Pan male was one of my first Londolozi leopards, viewing him in 2010 and again in 2013. What an amazing creature and I thought all male leopards looked like this! What a standard for the others to live up to! I believe I saw him briefly in 2015 for the last time – a memorable beast.
I loved following Camp Pan he really is a legend. I was under the impression that his father was Wallingford & his mother was Tavangumi. Did I get the wrong information?
He was a legend. His father was believed to be the Wallingford Male and mother Tavangumi Female.