When guests come to a private game reserve, on top of the list of animals one “has” to tick off is the Big 5. Whilst some of the Big 5 species are numerous and not unusual to come across, cats can send you on a wild goose chase, often coming out empty handed. They are by far the most sought after family of animal when guests come to Sabi Sabi. Their elusive nature, low populations, large territories or homeranges and their opportunistic behaviours make them difficult to view and thus a real treat when one does get the usually brief opportunity. Leopards, for example, are notorious for being the most secretive and even their local name translated to ‘pure sovereignty’ leads one no further than to believe the unlikelihood of seeing such a creature, and certainly not from any close proximity. This however is not the case in the Sabi Sand Game Reserve. Well known not only for having the highest density of leopards in the world, the concession is famous for having some of the most relaxed wild cats in South Africa, allowing guests a unique opportunity to view the animals up close and for an extended period of time. Scott Ramsay, an avid wildlife photojournalist said of his recent visit to Sabi Sabi “I was privileged for a few days to enter a wild world that seemed too good to be true in Africa. Here, in this little pocket of the continent, leopards live in harmony with people who respect and admire the photogenic predator”. Happy to continue their lives as normal in the presence of vehicles, tour directors will tell you “it makes for a safari experience like no other”; little did we know how those words would ring true on this particular morning...

Whilst en route toward a pride of lions found near the Sabie River, Moses – a tracker from Little Bush Camp, whom I had been working with, abruptly stuck out his hand, alerting us that something had caught his eye. Once halted, Moses jumped off his tracker seat with eyes glued to the ground before him. He circled something with his “magic stick”, paused, tapped the ground, spared us a glance (as almost to check if we were still there), and then walked a bit further, leaving all of us bewildered as to what juicy information he was withholding. Dying to know what he had seen and be a part of all the excitement, I got out the vehicle which sent Moses galloping across a bit of nearby bush onto a firebreak. I looked at the road but I couldn’t make out the track, looked back at Moses and back at the track. I felt like a dog must feel when you pretend to throw the ball and it runs 10 meters to realise it had been fooled. I wanted to know! I looked back up at the vehicle to find everyone looking at me for some sort of explanation, but all I had was a shrug. Just then Moses leaped and bounded back to the vehicle and said “there’s cheetah tracks, I can find it!” With lions a distant thought from the past, I replied “Which way do you want to go!?”

Back on the vehicle we looped around the block and just as Moses predicted where it would be, we found it – a large male cheetah in pristine condition, on the hunt. Navigating our way through the bush, occasionally catching a glimpse of his hindquarters, we eventually found ourselves in a fairly large open clearing, but, there was no cheetah. Then out jumped a duiker, making almost all of us gasp in surprise, our eyes following it as it dived across the open area and then out of nowhere, came the cheetah! But it was not the blurred flash of spots you would imagine of a cheetah hunting a sprinting duiker, no, it was as though the cheetah was leaping through a field of daisies. Presumably, the duiker had the same reaction of confusion, leading it to believe he had wrongly interpreted the cheetahs intentions, but just as I thought the cheetah had failed, he pressed the nitro switch. Full pace within seconds, the cheetah was hot on the tail of the duiker, winding his tail to help steer him through the duikers sharp turns before tackling it, knocking it down to the ground and lunging at the duikers neck to make the kill!

We were frozen with disbelief at what we had just witnessed; it wasn’t only my guest’s first kill, it was my first cheetah kill from start to finish! We drove closer to find the cheetah still suffocating the duiker and over the next ten minutes watched it start to disembowel the duiker and start feasting. I always find that it is around this time with most kills that we experience a common silence. Perhaps it is the realisation of mutual acceptance of life and death or perhaps it is the humbling experience of a behaviour that we are so far removed from in our Western, pre-packed, shelf-buying ways, but it is a silence felt by all and one that words simply fail to describe.

Watching the cheetah gorge itself between momentary breaks to look out for any potential danger, the rangers started to explain the behaviour and the vulnerability of cheetah to a plethora of other opportunistic scavengers. Little did we know, our explanations were about to come to life...

Moses was on fire; an exiting vehicle drew a small bit of his attention and out of the corner of his eye he spotted a female leopard skulking around the periphery. Her intentions of securing an easy meal were obvious. She stealthily crept her way closer until she was within 30 meters of the cheetah and his kill, planning her ambush. The cheetah caught sight of her, growling, attempting to deter her, but his fear was known to all. Within moments the leopard made a slight advance sending the cheetah fleeing and to reiterate her dominance and victory, Lisbon pursued him well into the bush.

We knew she would return for her prized duiker and waited patiently. A few minutes later, she came trotting back to claim her easy meal, but in true leopard behaviour, eating it out in the open was not on the agenda. She secured the duiker in her mouth at its neck and dragged it to the nearby termite mound, upon which two large trees were growing. With baited breaths we watched as she approached the most densely vegetated tree of the two, but much to our disappointment, she stashed it under a small shrub at the base of the tree and began to devour it. With a limited visibility, we decided to leave but for one of the other rangers, Eve, who decided to hold out for some time, they were greatly rewarded when she finally decided to move the kill up into the fork of the tree, saving just the head and neck for later.

It is the unexpected, unplanned, breathtaking, adrenaline filled moments that make the bush a drug. It’s the close proximity one is able to achieve when viewing these elusive cats, that make the Sabi Sand Game Reserve one of the most sought after concessions to work and visit. Whilst sightings like this a far from common place, it is a high that one can never get enough of and leaves you constantly seeking again and again. I suppose it is where the saying “high on life” comes from, and if that is how your job makes you feel, then I ask you with a smile on my face “what more could one ask for?”...