The past few weeks have been equally exciting and frustrating for the Ranging Team as we continue to search for and try to follow the Ximungwe Female’s movements around the reserve. All in the hope of catching a glimpse of her latest litter of cubs.
The exciting news that I can report is that we believe she has given birth to two cubs!
I thought I would use this opportunity to share a few stories from the past month of searching…
Hoping for a Christmas miracle back on the 24th December 2023, we spent a morning following the Ximungwe Female hoping she may lead us back to her den. With no success on that front, we nonetheless had an awesome sighting following her on part of an afternoon territorial patrol. This included her passing a mud wallow for a drink.
28th December 2023
The Ximungwe Female was seen around the Inyathini Drainage with a hoisted impala kill. After enjoying this sighting, Ranger Andrea Sithole and Tracker Sersant Sibuyi then went about back-tracking her all the way to a set of prominent boulders on Siwelas Road.
Hooves of an impala and a tail of a leopard.
They came across fresh signs of where the Ximungwe Female had been lying on the sand next to the boulders and small leopard tracks of the cubs, a place where she would have to lay down to let the cubs suckle. This was the first official sign of life her new litter! However, in the days that followed there appeared to be no further signs of her around these boulders and we suspected she must have moved them…
8th January 2024
Fast forward 10 days and Ranger Dan Hirschowitz and Tracker Freddy Ngobeni caught the first glimpse of two cubs!
According to Dan, on this particular morning, Freddy suspected she was keeping the cubs somewhere in the Tugwaan drainage. Setting out with the intention of looking for the Ximungwe Female, they headed into that area and came across “fresh tracks and piping hot scat” (Dan’s words) east of Sparta Sparta, north of Tugwaan Drive. Knowing that these signs indicated that she had been in the area earlier that morning but had recently moved away from the drainage and potential den site areas, Dan and Freddy decided they had a perfect opportunity to get on foot and back-track these tracks.
The supposed den, this is a cluster of boulders that several different female leopards have used in the past and we thought it was just a matter of time before the Ximungwe Female would move her cubs here.
Knowing that there was an old den site upstream in the drainage that the Tatowa Female had once used, they started their search by heading there to have a look around. With no sign of any activity in the area, the two of them continued further in the drainage and came across tracks of the Ximungwe Female going in and out of the drainage. Following the direction of where the tracks were heading, they cast their eyes on a set of boulders about 50m north of the drainage and caught only a moment’s glimpse of two tiny cubs (likely less than 4 weeks old) sitting on top of the boulders before they ran and disappeared into the tiny crevices between the rocks.
10th January 2024
With this new, exciting information, Ranger Robbie Ball and Tracker Trevor set out towards this new den site. FINALLY – the first sighting of mother and cubs together! Given the position of this set of boulders, visual of all three leopards was very limited (hence a lack of content, according to Robbie), but nonetheless, catching a glimmer of golden rosettes between the thicket of bushes and boulders, and hearing the whimpering of the cubs wanting to suckle was enough to deem it an exhilarating and memorable morning!
26th January 2024
We are yet to have another sighting of the Ximungwe Female with her cubs, so stay tuned for when we can hopefully introduce them officially!
Kate Arthur
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