What a lucky find this was, seeing something as rare as a baboon with a leopard cub in the Pilanesberg Private Game Reserve. That, while Lauren Pretorius spotted another baboon, in the Kruger, with another leopard cub, round about the same time of year!
“What a lucky find this was, seeing something as rare as a baboon with a leopard cub in the Pilanesberg Private Game Reserve. That, while Lauren Pretorius spotted another baboon, in the Kruger, with another leopard cub, round about the same time of year!
“We were slowly heading back towards our lodge after an early morning game drive, when we came upon a large troop of baboons. We were enjoying the spectacle, as we hadn’t really had any good sightings of baboon on our trip.
“Within seconds, and with all eyes on him, he juggled what he was carrying and we all gasped as it was clearly a tiny leopard cub. The initial reaction from myself, and the guide, was that the cub was surely already dead and the baboon had simply picked it up while foraging, or, perhaps, had even been involved in its death. However, after a few more seconds, it was obvious that the cub was very much alive!”
“At that point, the sighting took on a whole new aspect as we were confronted, in nature, with something that seemed somehow… unnatural. An adult baboon shouldn’t be carrying around a leopard cub!
The cub belongs with its mother! I think we were all hoping that the baboon would lose interest in the cub and leave it behind so that there might be the smallest chance that it could be reunited with its mother.
“The baboon was some way behind the rest of the troop. However, he was still keeping up with them, sitting a while with the cub, then picking it up with one arm and continuing down the road a little as the distance between him and the rest of the troop grew too big.
“I don’t know if a male baboon with a live leopard cub has ever been seen/recorded before. It’s the first I’ve ever heard of this specific combination. For me, personally, it was certainly a first and I don’t expect to ever see something like that again. It was an incredible sighting, but bitter-sweet for all of us watching, because we knew the cub would not be able to survive more than just a few hours away from its mom.”
Since these two sightings, and the one of the baboon with the lion cub, also around the same time of year, we haven’t received any more sightings of this kind.