Leopards in a Suikerbossie Garden
After receiving this email last month from Richard and Monica Miles, I decided to put the story we printed in our October 2012 issue onto the site:
Early this Morning (Monday 11th.) at 02h20 a Leopard visited the deck at the back of our house. I happened to be awake and noticed our security light come on and suspected it must be a domestic cat that had triggered it, as usual. However I then heard a “thump” on the decking and thought it could be an intruder. I got out of bed and looked through the sliding doors to see a Leopard climbing up the retaining wall. At the top it paused and looked back. The two of us stared at each other for about 15 seconds, after which it turned and made its way back up the mountain.
Neighbours have seen Klipspringer up on the mountain so we suspected the Leopards had moved out of our area. Lately we have had a few visits from Baboons, but have not seen them in the last ten days or so. Perhaps there’s a connecting reason linking the three?
Cheers
Richard and Monica
Imagine looking through your kitchen window at 7.30 one morning while making your first cup of coffee, to find a leopard staring back at you from the windowsill.
It might sound like fiction, but this is precisely what a Gordon’s Bay resident in Suikerbossie Drive experienced on Wednesday morning 21st of September.
When she looked again, the leopard had jumped down and was sitting outside the back door with another smaller leopard; more than likely a mother and her sub-adult cub. Minutes later the pair disappeared into the densely vegetated garden below.
Still not quite believing what she had seen, she called the Helderberg Nature Reserve and Hayley-May Wittridge, conservation manager of biodiversity for the Gordon’s Bay area, to tell them of the sighting. She said she was not entirely sure whether they believed her, but all credit to Hayley-May and her team for immediately driving to the scene to monitor the situation. Anne Connor, a neighbour, who was about to take her little Maltese terrier for a walk, was advised to remain indoors.
The leopards remained in hiding and the team of experts who were on standby to dart the animals if necessary, waited for several hours before concluding that they had made their way back up the mountainside into the fynbos.
According to Hayley-May, there are believed to be at least eleven Cape leopards in the Kogelberg Biosphere Reserve area, which stretches from Gordon’s Bay, Rooi Els and Kleinmond on the coast across to the mountains above Grabouw.
What a privilege for the residents of Suikerbossie Drive to have had the opportunity to observe these beautiful, elusive animals at close hand. While all wild animals should be treated with great caution and respect, these rare sightings should be valued and enjoyed – and if a camera is at hand, even better!
Should you wish to find out more about the Cape Leopard and the Cape Leopard Trust, please visit their website at:
http://www.capeleopard.org.za