Leopards Mate - 05:00 pm
23 Sep 2009
By Jason Loughran
Moremi offered up yet another unique sighting.
I was privileged enough to witness leopards mating.
This is one of the few occasions where one can see 2 adults leopards together. Males will identify a female who is in estrus by smelling her urine and then following her scent. Once contact is made it is the female who initiates mating and will follow the male if he moves.
Felines are induced ovulators and it is therefore necessary to have repeated copulation in order for the female to produce ova and conceive.
Estrus will last around 7 days and in this period the pair will mate roughly every 30 minutes.
As with most felines mating is a rather aggressive affair with lots of snarling, growling and the bearing of teeth.
It is not malicious but individuals do end up with the odd scratch or two. Leopards gestation period is just over 3 months and we will keep track on this female and hopefully see her again with her new cubs.
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Comments
2 posted at 09:19am on 02 October, 2009 by Yann
Hey there,
Wow,what a beautiful website with amazing content!
I’m headed towards Moremi in december and would like to know in which area you see all these leopards.
I went there for a week in january and didn’t see any,nor tracks or signs of any kind.I went to lots of areas,around xakanaka,Dead Tree,third bridge and had no luck...one area seemed pretty good for leopards was the Mboma loop track under those big trees…
Could you be kind enough to enlighten me a bit( I am very respectful of the wild and do long range photos and videos)?
How to meet you when I’m there and how to upload some nice content if I get any?
Thanks for your time
Yann
3 posted at 10:15am on 02 October, 2009 by JasonL
Hi Yann
You were looking in the right areas for leopards. December and January is the height of the rainy season and the vegetation offers too much cover for the leopards and we seldom see them over this period. The best time is August to October and we see them daily. This mating took place on the western side of Dead Tree (keep an eye on the earth-touch website as the video footage will be up soon).
We are active throughout the year and if you see us please stop and have a chat. There are no facilities for you to upload content to the site but feel free to email your pictures ().
Cheers
Jason
1 posted at 12:37pm on 24 September, 2009 by Brennan
All I can say is wow! I wish I could have seen something like this!