A particular female leopard in the East has become a regular sighting for our guests on game drives over the last couple of months.  On most occasions when the she has been sighted we have seen her moving in and around the dry riverbeds and the thicket vegetation surrounding the riverbeds.  She has been in the same area for about three weeks now and this lead us to believe that she might have cubs in the area …

On Saturday morning our hopes were realized when one of our Field Rangers, D.J. Malan, located both the female leopard and her cubs sunbathing on an old dead tree stump in the area that she had been frequenting!!  This litter includes two cubs which are approximately two months old as their coats appear to be smoky gray as the rosettes are not yet clearly defined.  This was an incredible sighting for our guests got to see the cubs and their mom interacting during the day!

Females are capable of breeding at two years and will produce litters of one to three cubs after a pregnancy lasting about three and a half months.  Leopard cubs weigh around 500 g at birth and their eyes open after about a week. F or the first two months the mother keeps her cubs hidden in dense bush, rock clefts or hollow tree trunks to minimize detection from predators.  The cubs will venture from hiding after about six to eight weeks by which time they are rather successful tree climbers.

Mothers leave the young cubs for periods of up to 36 hours while hunting and feeding before returning to suckle them.  She brings solid food to her cubs when they’re about six weeks old and the cubs are weaned at about three months but stay with their mother for the first 22 months.  Less than half of the cubs from a litter will on average survive to adulthood.

   

   

   

Photographs courtesy of D.J. Malan,  Field Ranger – Lion Sands Private Game Reserve

This Journal Entry was posted on Tuesday, 2 June 2009 at 2:00 am.