Legedema’s Cubs Come of Age
Mombo Camp, Moremi Game Reserve, Botswana
May 4, 2009
Photos courtesy of Peter Myburg

Pula and Maru are the 18-month-old cubs of the famous Legadema, female leopard star of the multi-award winning National Geographic documentary ‘Eye of the Leopard’.

As they reach their age of independence and are spending less and less time with their mother, all three leopards have of late been very difficult to find. This all changed towards the end of April when Legadema decided to bring both cubs into camp where they spent about three days. Pula, went so far during this time as to climb onto the main lodge deck while we were seated by the camp fire. Following a short, sniffing investigation, Pula turned back and walked down the walkway to the vehicle turning circle in front of camp.

The next day, Maru (the sister) and Legadema left but Pula stayed within the vicinity and was then followed to Limpy’s Island. She was found on a sub-adult impala carcass. Our initial thoughts were that Legadema must have made the kill but try as we might we could not locate either Legadema or Maru. It was then that we began to suspect that Pula had upgraded from squirrel kills to impala kills.

When Pete and Malinga later went to check on the carcass to see how much was left, the story unfolded further. On arrival they found Pula busy feeding and as they sat and watched, she suddenly bolted out of the tree in which the kill was hoisted.

Not knowing what was happening, the guides quickly manoeuvred sufficiently to notice a sub-adult impala ram that had wandered into the sighting, blissfully unaware of the leopard. Pula managed to leap up and grab the impala by the throat, pulling it down after a few seconds.

The inexperienced huntress then left the impala as if she had given up. The impala of course tried to run away and Pula sprang back into action, almost playing with the impala and practising all her inexpert techniques. Her instincts then told her that there might be someone hungry and bigger nearby and she finally dispatched the hapless impala and decided to take the whole kill up the same tree in which she had her first kill – and placed it right on top of the first kill without disembowelling it.

This was four days ago and today she was still in the same area with some of her bountiful windfall remaining.