Trust

Nikon D40x

f5.6

1/80th sec.

ISO 200

Nikon AF 70-210mm 4-5.6 @ 210mm

I haven't posted for nearly a week! I've been away in Cape Town and Johannesburg for the weekend and the last few days I have been recuperating from the lack of sleep I got throughout the trip. It was really nice to see JHB. I have lived in South Africa for six years now and I've never spent anytime there! I've been to the airport a lot but never any further than that. I love experiencing new places, it's something that drives me as a person. I want to see everything and I want to experience everything. I didn't see as much as I would have liked to.. Not necessarily a bad thing as it means that i will have to go back for a return visit :)

I took this picture a few months ago whilst visiting the Tenikwa Wildcat Sancturary. The Park is just outside of Plettenberg Bay and is worth the visit if you haven't been. I had actually forgotten that they have a leopard there so when I arrived and remembered I was quite happy about it. Such powerful, stealthy, efficient predators that attack their prey without warning and usually leave it with no chance to escape. There is something so intriguing and mysterious about them. Everyone always remarks "you can't trust a leopard". One of the only animals that cannot be tamed, an animal that can be perfectly fine with you one day and tear you to shreds the next. The only other species I can think of that shares this characteristic is the human race. Can we ever truly trust anyone or are we like the leopard?

Habitat destruction, poaching, trophy hunting and culling by farmers, all play a role in the decreasing population numbers of the African Leopard. New evidence shows that trophy hunting of large cat species is having a more detrimental effect than previously believed. Hunters always want to shoot the biggest and the strongest, the most 'fearsome' animal they can set their sights on. What this is doing in the long term is weakening the gene pool by removing the stronger blood lines. The larger cats are killed and the females mate with the smaller cats resulting in cubs that are not necessarily unfit but they aren't as strong they would have been if she had mated with a larger cat. Its natural selection with its head cut off. How anyone can shoot a leopard is beyond me and I find it disgusting to think people do it for fun. I don't even want to think about starting to share my views about trophy hunting though..

I find leopards to be one of the most beautiful of the big cats and probably the most photogenic. The fencing around the enclosure was a sort of wire mesh with large holes but not big enough to get my lens through. The leopard was lying in long grass behind some trees when we first arrived at the enclosure but got up and moved a little further away when we got closer. He seemed to ignore us completely and acted as if we weren't even there. Something caught his attention though and he raised his head through the grass. I was crouching down away from everyone else and managed to get this shot as he stared at the focus of his attention.

Phewww... more to come soon. P.S.