I don’t know if you’ve ever heard a Leopard before but they have a very distinctive sound. I’m sure everyone’s heard a Lion roar but the Leopard is more of a throaty cackle. I was coming out of the class the other day and all I could hear was this noise. I thought I was going mad because none of us have heard a Leopard around the campus before so I thought I’d go out and investigate. I went down to my room to get my trusty torch first mind you. As I was getting my torch “Special One,” decides he wants to come up with me and see if we can see this Leopard too.
We went up to the fence line and gingerly started to pace down the hill towards the gulley. Every so often we would stop and turn off our torches and listen. I thought that I had actually imagined hearing the animal earlier on. So with baited breath we stood there listening to the African night. Then suddenly very close to where we were we heard it again. As I said, it’s not something you get confused about and it was close. I got a bit of a shiver up my spine when I heard it. Of course “Special One,” being his usual brain dead self decided to run up towards the sound. I grabbed him back and asked him “if he was mad?” (Stupid question!) A Leopard can easily jump a 5 foot fence. They can drag a carcass of an Impala up a sheer 4 metre tree trunk and that’s with 80kg dragging it back! We moved towards the sound at a snails pace and stopped again to listen but to our disappointment we didn’t hear any more calls. I’m sure the Leopard had a nice view of two big eijits walking towards it and scarpered! I’m regretting not having bought the night vision goggles now!
As an interesting anecdote to that story I read an article about a Leopard attack in the very place we stayed before we headed to Mozambique last month. The ranger who’s house we stayed in actually wrote the article. It describes the stupidity of some people very well! I’ve attached the shortcut for your review:
http://www.marlothparkhonoraryrangers.co.za/?p=293
We went up to the fence line and gingerly started to pace down the hill towards the gulley. Every so often we would stop and turn off our torches and listen. I thought that I had actually imagined hearing the animal earlier on. So with baited breath we stood there listening to the African night. Then suddenly very close to where we were we heard it again. As I said, it’s not something you get confused about and it was close. I got a bit of a shiver up my spine when I heard it. Of course “Special One,” being his usual brain dead self decided to run up towards the sound. I grabbed him back and asked him “if he was mad?” (Stupid question!) A Leopard can easily jump a 5 foot fence. They can drag a carcass of an Impala up a sheer 4 metre tree trunk and that’s with 80kg dragging it back! We moved towards the sound at a snails pace and stopped again to listen but to our disappointment we didn’t hear any more calls. I’m sure the Leopard had a nice view of two big eijits walking towards it and scarpered! I’m regretting not having bought the night vision goggles now!
As an interesting anecdote to that story I read an article about a Leopard attack in the very place we stayed before we headed to Mozambique last month. The ranger who’s house we stayed in actually wrote the article. It describes the stupidity of some people very well! I’ve attached the shortcut for your review:
http://www.marlothparkhonoraryrangers.co.za/?p=293
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