The Secret Leopards Natural World

From the African jungle, to the deserts of Arabia,

and living from the snowy wastes of Russia to Indian farmland,

are leopards.

Whilst tigers are close to extinction,

lion numbers are plummeting,

leopards remain the great survivors.

I'm Jonathan Scott. I love leopards.

They're just such magical creatures.

How does this beautiful and elusive animal

survive where other big cats cannot?

I went to Africa to find leopards.

But in my first year there, I had only two glimpses.

It's still very difficult.

I've now spent 30 years

photographing and writing books about leopards.

Yet every moment with them I think of as such a gift.

Though leopards are hardly ever seen,

they are the most numerous and widespread big cat.

From fragments of their story, gathered by filmmakers, scientists

and game rangers, we can begin to piece together leopards' lives.

We start where our ancestors started, in the African jungle,

several million years ago.

A leopard is a perfectly camouflaged jungle cat, a tree cat, a night cat,

a killer of snakes and bush pigs, monkeys and apes.

It hunts on the ground and in the trees.

Nowhere is safe. The perfect predator.

A leopard weighs than less a person,

but it's so much faster and stronger.

It could appear from nowhere, a flash of gold and black,

kill you, and drag you off.

Instead, a leopard would rather slink away, cautious and wise.

A million years or so ago, East Africa dried,

and the jungle shrank back.

Now only remnants remain, often along ribbons of river.

A leopard wakes now to a new world with big animals and strong hunters.

A leopard lives alone. Here, her enemies outnumber her 20 to 1.

Cheetahs evolved for the plains, athletic sprinters, and specialists.

The leopard may be slower than the cheetah, and weaker than the lion.

But she'll beat them all in the end.

She carries her tail high. Gazelles know she's not hunting.

It's as if she doesn't want to spread unnecessary alarm.

Using stories of different leopards, different lives,

a single character emerges.

It allows us to explore what it is to be a leopard,

a mother, the perfect hunter.

She stalks like the forest leopards, creeping down the gullies.

She doesn't want anything to see her and raise the alarm.

She notices when the gazelles are watching,

and she thinks about what they might do next.

She hunts with her wits, a very clever cat.

Tommies have favourite crossing points.

A perfect place for an ambush.

Rivers makes them nervous, and with good reason.

She sometimes doubles back, and works around from another angle.

Leopards have a clear map in their heads.

The gazelles encounter dangers in several rivers nearby.

Another day at another river.

The tommies are already nervous,

and that gives leopards the edge.

The gazelle is heavy.

She's tired, and there's no easy tree to stash her kill.

Lions and hyenas fight over their kills, and carry the scars.

Better to hunt again.

Leopards live invisible lives.

Only a handful of wild mothers have become used to vehicles

and tolerate being followed.

But when it comes to lions and hyenas, that's a different matter.

Their eyes have just about opened.

They're a few weeks old.

However careful she is, they're incredibly vulnerable.

Leopards are secretive hunters, but they're wary too,

because they themselves are hunted.

Hyenas, like other predators, kill their potential rivals

if they possibly can.

The hyena may return with back up.

She has to move the cubs.

She knows every cave along the gorge, and moves to one a few yards further down.

Baboons can be as troublesome as hyenas.

A troop of baboons could overwhelm a mother, and try to kill the cubs.

She's stronger than a single baboon.

But better to hide, protect the cubs.

In just a few days,

a cub grows from a helpless bundle to an inquisitive explorer.

It's starting to learn the layout of her world, and her concerns.

Lions are a nightmare for any leopard.

It's not just cubs, mothers are in danger too.

Lions could sniff her out, and beat her in a fight.

The hunter becomes the hunted.

If they were to catch her, they'd kill her.

She has to stay a step ahead,

always out of sight, always on the move.

A leopard's den is often deep within thorny bushes and among rocks.

Many leopards share the landscape with the Maasai,

nomadic herders of sheep and cattle.

Warriors guard the livestock from predators.

People are easy to avoid,

yet she takes the danger seriously, and melts away into the rocks.

Over the years, I've become fascinated by the relationship

between leopards and man.

We have been part of each other's lives for millions of years.

Fire, and shelters, even the first societies and language

evolved in part to defend us from leopards.

The Maasai protect their cattle behind high thorn walls.

Leopards have been prowling around villages for generations.

People are part of their world.

Yet attacks are rare.

It's as though she is following an ancient compromise,

a ritualised dance of old enemies

who have learnt to tolerate each other.

Her character is to slip like a shadow between different worlds,

and for nobody even to notice.

A leopard is unlike any other large predator.

Is this, in part, the answer to how they colonised so much of our world

within the last million years?

Leopards moved north and east through Arabia and Persia,

and on into India.

They found a way around the Himalayas into China and Russia,

and south towards Thailand and Malaysia.

Leopards cover nearly half the world now.

Nobody knows how many secretive leopards there are.

But we do know there are many more than all the lions,

tigers and cheetahs added together.

It's a leopard's thoughtful and careful character that enables it

to survive in a new, strange world.

Leopards in India are smaller, but equally adaptable and wary.

They need to be.

There are tigers, wolves and bears, hyenas and lions.

Kipling's panther, Bagheera, is an Indian leopard in The Jungle Book.

He's Mowgli's wise friend as they battle Shere Khan, the tiger.

Bagheera the leopard still lives in India,

outwitting Shere Khan and Baloo the bear whenever he can.

Tigers and lions used to rule here.

Increasingly they're rare relics from the past, unable to adapt.

India is more crowded, its wildlife reserves smaller than Africa's.

Some leopards live near farms and villages.

Here in Northern India, traditional life takes leopards into account.

Sheep and goats are brought into the villages from the hillsides.

Children are sent to bed at twilight.

Livestock is protected by high walls of thorns, as in Africa.

Houses are guarded by dogs and peacocks.

For a few nights, this village has been wired up with starlight cameras

that use invisible infrared light.

There are few large predators able to live so close to us.

Some places have hungry bears.

And there are coyotes in America and urban foxes in Europe.

But leopards also live with people, largely unnoticed.

The sheep and goats seem not to smell or hear a thing.

The leopard patrols the village as if it owns it,

stopping only for a drink.

Maybe that's why it came.

Leopards may prefer to be secret,

yet there's a curiosity and courage here too.

Perhaps leopards find that to avoid bigger predators like lions,

it's wise to keep track of them, to learn about their enemies.

What keeps the leopard alive is knowledge.

Much of this begins when they're cubs, with their mother.

Back in Africa, there is a leopard that trusts people enough

to allow them to follow her and her two cubs.

Once again, different families contribute their part to our story.

The cubs are three or four months old.

They hide, and only emerge when she returns.

The gully is a thoroughfare through the drying plain.

Baboons are regular visitors. Time to leave.

Sometimes, a cub will struggle to follow its mother to safety.

It is crucial a baboon doesn't see or hear a thing.

It may be too late to fetch the cub without being seen.

Leopard mothers must make hard decisions.

She melts away into the bushes.

A leopard cub knows to hide, without any fuss, or calling for mum.

A lion or cheetah cub might not be so calm.

A baboon stops right by the cub's hiding place.

UNDERGROWTH RUSTLES

Nothing stirs.

Eventually, the baboons leave.

Mother leopards may wait hours before returning to a missing cub.

The remaining cub follows.

It's not unheard of to lose a cub to baboons.

The majority of leopard cubs die a violent death.

But sometimes, a cub does emerge, unhurt,

many hours, or even a day later.

It's extraordinary, a leopard cub already knows the rules.

Keep your head down, hide for hours, let nobody see you.

That's what makes watching this so special.

The cubs learn how to hunt, practising on any passing insect.

The cub's mother is always careful.

Like a cat with a kitty litter, she buries any evidence near the den.

It's not hard to imagine a family of leopards

remaining undiscovered anywhere.

But how leopard families survive change and hard times

is the next part of our story.

The plains are drying, and most of the large animals migrate away,

searching for green grass.

Some predators can follow, but most are tied to territories.

Leopards fight hard for their patch.

Why leave?

But as the cover dies back, it's trickier to move without being seen.

The local Maasai are traditionally nomadic,

gathering up their livestock, and moving on as well.

They too must find fresh grass and water.

People can move, but territorial hyenas and lions must tough it out.

Competition over food intensifies.

This is when they really struggle.

For leopards, tree-lined gullies and forest edges are a refuge.

Leopards can take advantage

of living on the frontiers of two worlds.

This dry landscape may seem extreme for a leopard,

but they adapt easily,

able to change their habits in a way most animals rarely can.

Out there, only the tough guys remain.

Warthogs survive by digging up roots.

Warthog adults are fearless, with lethal tusks.

This is a lucky leopard.

There's a familiarity to many of the animals that the leopards now hunt.

Wart hogs are like bush pigs,

and guinea fowl are similar to ground dwelling forest birds.

Dik-dik are like small forest antelope,

and, of course, there are monkeys.

Lizards, mice, dung beetles. There is no other predator in the world

that eats such a range of prey.

Her character adapts as quickly as the landscape changes.

Oman, in the Middle East.

The landscape looks barren, just scrub and rock.

The leopard researchers here never SEE the rare wild leopards.

They track them with radio transmitters and camera traps.

The Arabian leopards and their cubs are half the size.

Paler, but otherwise very similar.

They hide in caves, and eat gerbils, hares, small gazelles, anything.

People have taken over the desert oases, forcing leopards out.

They've been shot, poisoned, collected,

and now they're critically endangered.

Leopards live more often in extremes,

in mountains as well as deserts.

The rarest live on the other side of the Himalayas, beyond China,

in the Russian tundra around Vladivostok.

Amur leopards face freezing Siberian winters.

Their thick coats make them look like Snow Leopards

found in the Himalayas, a very different species.

In fact, Amur leopards are the same species

as African and Arabian leopards, with only superficial adaptations.

Their prey is different. Deer, wild boar, and badgers.

Once, they competed here with tigers and bears.

Now, less than 50 remain, cut off from other leopards,

poached for their fur and bone.

Food is disappearing, the forest felled.

There is a limit to leopard survival.

They have an extraordinary talent to adapt to our changing world,

but it's not always enough.

This is the end of where leopards can live.

Further south, rice paddies and plantations stretch to the equator.

Most of the wilderness has gone, but leopards hold out.

It seems they've become

the most widespread large land predator species left.

Except for us.

The survivors move between tiny refuges,

woods or hilltops, within hundreds of square miles of farmland.

Black leopards, panthers, are seen here.

The black colour is just a recessive gene, like red hair.

Many were captured for the pet trade for the West,

until keeping leopards as pets was banned.

They hunt any small wildlife, like ducks or rats.

Farmers claim they also eat a lot of livestock,

and persecute them as pests.

But most people never even see the leopards that they live with.

The leopards stay one step ahead, hear people coming, and hide.

Leopards always try to avoid giving themselves away.

Most intriguing of all, are the leopards even deeper in our world.

There are the rumours in Beijing, Mumbai, and Jakarta,

of city leopards fleetingly glimpsed.

They seem to be eating stray pets and rats and rubbish.

But why not just eat us, surely the easiest prey on the planet?

Perhaps the answer may be traced back to where the story started -

the rainforest in Africa.

In the rainforest there were never lions or hyenas.

Leopards are the top predator.

Leopards sometimes are found in the trees as well as on the flat ground.

Their powerful claws, strong flexible bodies, smaller size

and balancing tails mean they can venture

into a three-dimensional world.

But despite their awesome talents, they are still wary, and elusive.

Who are they afraid of finding them?

Monkeys, guenons, mangabeys and colobus form noisy gangs

to protect themselves, like the jungle police.

One of the calls they all understand is "Leopard!"

SHRIEKING AND SCREECHING

Once noticed, a leopard must move on. It can't hunt here.

The monkeys have pioneered language

to coordinate the neighbourhood watch.

They can add information, "Leopard nearby", or "in a tree".

It's no wonder leopards learned to be invisible, or nocturnal.

But does it explain why leopards generally fear people?

Perhaps there's something else leopards are afraid of.

Chimpanzees are leopard size.

A gang of male chimps becomes very focused

if they hear of a leopard nearby.

Their hair stands on end and their senses strain

as they systematically set out to terrorise the cat.

CALLS AND RESPONSES

AGGRESSIVE CALLING AND POUNDING

Chimpanzees probably frighten leopards

at least as much as lions, tigers or hyenas do.

Two million years ago, we think our ancestors here had fire,

better weapons, and were well organised.

It's easy to imagine prehistoric people terrifying leopards.

Even today, leopards are still persecuted.

It's no wonder they're instinctively afraid of us.

Leopards' jungle ancestry gives them a unique legacy of skills.

They've learned to live with many dangers.

But what about the threat from another leopard?

Back in East Africa, how leopards cope with other leopards

is the next part of the story.

Elements of a leopard's life are easy to see.

The changing seasons, and their food.

Their enemies - lions and hyenas - are violent and obvious.

But what about the invisible, their relationship with each other?

Our story continues with a mother with two cubs,

over a year old - teenagers.

Their mother could be looking for a mate soon, but she's distracted.

The herds of wildebeest are back in her territory.

The mother leaves the two cubs alone for most of the day.

The cubs clearly know about lions and hyenas,

and wait in the safety of a tree.

A leopard's first concern isn't always food.

Most leopards spend a lot of time patrolling their territory,

and checking for clues of other leopards.

Leopards cover many miles each day,

checking trees, renewing scent and claw marks.

It's like a notice board

and any leopard can add a message that will last for weeks.

She can also spray a more detailed and pungent signal,

revealing if she's ready for a mate.

Where leopards are rare,

with huge territories, this system, and their rasping calls, is crucial.

It allows leopards that want to breed to find each other.

It is often hard to piece together what's going on.

A male might be on patrol, checking,

feeding in the area for a while first.

A male's life is all about breeding.

She's unlikely to be receptive if her cubs are under a year old.

But she must be cautious,

as new males often kill cubs.

A leopard's life is ruled by the invisible,

dictated by secret messages,

long distance communication and rare meetings.

It seems perhaps she's not ready to mate.

She has cubs. Her focus must be to look after them and feed them.

The herds have many eyes, and scare easily.

She has different strategies.

She charges in, like a lion.

Leopards have learned new tricks for hunting here on the plains.

She brings down a big yearling wildebeest

and then lets it go free when she sees a more manageable one.

Chaos in the herd can be a problem, attracting unwanted attention.

Different ways of hunting carry different risks.

Hunger could make her reckless enough to confront a thief,

but it rarely does.

Leopards are reluctant to fight over hard-won kills.

Better a lioness has her lunch, than has her.

Meanwhile, in the trees,

the teenage cubs are testing each other's strength.

The cubs are surrounded by food, temptation.

They have a chance to practise hunting on the real thing.

The approaching night is an opportunity to discover

a whole new side to leopards.

For us to see anything in the pitch dark,

we have to switch to infrared cameras.

They seem excited, but not yet ready to hunt.

Leopards are mostly nocturnal,

but here, with bigger predators out at night,

it's a more dangerous time.

THUNDER CRASHES

Their mother, a distance away, is starting, very carefully, to hunt.

Darkness is her cover now.

She stalks out in the open.

A moth wants to drink from her eye.

She's determined to ignore it.

Her concentration is total.

Wildebeest calves aren't so vigilant,

and the night offers all the help she needs.

In a flash, she's up a tree with her prize.

The stampeding herd will attract every lion and hyena nearby.

Sure enough, a lioness finds her, and starts to climb.

Lions are not good climbers.

They're heavyweights, too cumbersome.

The leopard's meal is safe,

and the lioness is soon distracted by another opportunity.

Able to leave the carcass in the tree,

the mother can go to get her cubs.

She soon discovers they're not where she left them.

A hyena has found the cubs.

One of them flees.

Each of the twins has a very different character.

The other stands its ground.

LEOPARD CUB ROARS

The feisty cub is now almost hyena size.

These cubs know how to look after themselves.

There's no food, so no point in starting a fight.

The mother can hear nothing over the storm,

but for the moment her cubs have shown

they can look after themselves.

Not all cubs are so fortunate.

We don't know what killed this particular cub.

Lions perhaps, or maybe a male leopard.

When another of our mothers loses a cub,

her adolescent son has her undivided attention.

She is his whole world.

Perhaps she should be finding a mate,

preparing soon for another litter of cubs, encouraging him to move on.

But, for the moment, she doesn't.

Flexibility has always been at the heart of a leopard's success.

She hunts, while he sleeps and eats. A typical teenager!

A year later, he's bigger than his mother, two-and-a-quarter years old

and still hanging around with Mum.

While the herds are near,

she concentrates on wildebeest and zebra for them to eat.

She drags carcasses back for them.

Meanwhile he sneaks out at night,

then eats a quarter of his body weight for breakfast.

Sometimes she might discover offerings he's brought back.

Even a dead porcupine needs experienced handling.

He's exploring his world by day too.

He learns what is dangerous

or too big to hunt.

He stays mainly in the river gully, and practices hunting geese.

He targets antelope and hares, hyrax or a mongoose.

At times, most leopards hunt small prey,

a talent that will keep them alive when food is scarce.

Occasionally leopards get over-confident,

but hyenas and lions soon teach them a lesson.

He knows every step of this river, and has his escape routes ready.

Whenever he runs into problems, he still has mum as back up.

As he grows up, it's clear he's a cat slowly preparing for the future.

Beyond protected areas, lions are looking increasingly precarious,

but he has skills that a lion will never have.

A while after most cubs would have left, his mother seems ready

to ease her overgrown cub out.

Leopardesses advertise their desire to mate, by calling more often.

One morning, a month or so later,

the mother leopard appears unwell, and hasn't hunted.

The adult cub is there, waiting for food.

He's spraying, ready to mark his own territory somewhere else.

Inside perhaps, upsetting her chemistry,

could be the next generation.

Time to move on.

Young males are forced to roam widely,

avoiding territorial leopards, and searching for a home.

Beyond the protected areas are towns, then cities.

Leopards are part of a modern world.

In Nairobi, people see them occasionally by the roads

and on waste ground, at night.

I've seen them too.

Leopards have secret lives all over Africa and Asia,

clinging on where we have encroached into their world.

People call them vermin, problem leopards, and sometimes they are.

But I prefer to think of a truly remarkable creature,

battling to cope with problems we have created.

May its ancient instincts, and all its mother taught it, protect it.

Be adaptable,

be clever,

become an invisible shadow,

and slip away.

There is a final chapter, a piece of the puzzle still to put in place.

This is England.

Leopards aren't meant to live here.

And yet, there are tales of black panthers

roaming ancient woods and moors.

Sightings have built up and some maintain that a few leopards

are living wild in Britain.

What we do know is leopards,

among others, were kept in England as exotic pets.

But about thirty years ago, the law changed.

Some were put down, or sent to zoos,

but some were released or escaped into the countryside.

As sightings have increased, some people have quietly concluded

that there are a few leopards living undercover.

It sounds like a tall story to me.

But knowing what I do about leopards,

anything is possible.

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