Featured image by David Bygott

My previous post, LEOPARDS: WILDLIFE OF NGORONGORO, stimulated some comments worthy of sharing:

Yvonne Stephenson*

When Yvonne and her husband Steve lived in the Serengeti National Park “many moons ago,” Kay Turner had two pet serval kittens given her by a warden of Tanzania’s game department. His rangers had found them at the bottom of a six-foot-deep pit that poachers had covered with grass to trap passing animals. Kay raised the two servals for six months. Then, one night, while they were sleeping on her bed, a leopard crashed through the bedroom window’s wire mosquito screen and caught one. Luckily, Kay was in another room at the time, entertaining guests. (*The husbands of Yvonne and Kay were, respectively, chief, and deputy chief wardens of the park in the early 1970’s.)

On another occasion, Yvonne continues, “A ranger burst into our house to report that a leopard had been spotted up a tree with a cheetah, which it must have killed, because the cheetah’s tail could be seen hanging down from the branch. This was very sad for few cheetahs were being seen at the time.”

Herman Dirschl

Herman, the Ngorongoro Conservation Area’s ecologist in 1966, relates a leopard encounter experienced by John Goddard, a biologist studying rhinos in Ngorongoro Crater. John was on the porch of Lerai Cabin when he noticed his little dog, which had wandered several hundred feet away to the edge of Lerai Forest, racing toward him with a leopard in close pursuit. John opened the cabin’s door just in time to let his dog in, slamming it in the leopard’s face.

Patrick Furtado

Patrick thinks he remembers reading a passage in Beryl Markham’s memoir, West with the Night, about her bulldog fighting off a leopard that leaped through a window to catch it. I can easily believe this happened because West with the Night is about Beryl growing up in Kenya in the early 1900’s when it was British East Africa, and wild animals still prowled the outskirts of Nairobi. Beryl’s bulldog would not have been the only domestic pet to have a close–and sometimes deadly–encounter with a leopard.

David Bygott*

David, commenting on my statement that leopards were rarely seen in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, says this has changed due to an increase in tourism, which is habituating leopards to people (or perhaps the vehicles they ride in). And, of course, leopards also are more commonly seen because more people are looking for them. ” I have seen leopards several times on the main road from Lodoare Gate to Ngorongoro, and in the crater. In the Ndutu area I’ve seen them many times.” (*David Bygott and Jeannette Hanby are the authors of Ngorongoro Conservation Area: A Complete Guidebook. https://www.hanby-bygott-books.com)

David continues: “Here’s one of my favorite leopard memories: Years ago, staying at Serengeti’s Migration Camp, Jeannette and I slipped away and climbed a small hill to enjoy the sunset. As we sat there, I chanced to look over my shoulder and saw a leopard sitting about ten yards away, illuminated by the sun, peering at us over the tall grass. In the time it took me to whisper ‘Chui!‘ it vanished completely, leaving only an indelible mental picture.”

FURTHER READING

Bygott, D. & J. Hanby. 1992. Ngorongoro Conservation Area: A Complete Guidebook. https://www.hanby-bygott-books.com

Markham, B. 2013. West with the Night. North Point Press. 2nd edit. (First published in 1942.)

Turner, K. 1977. Serengeti Home. George Allen & Unwin.