Africa's Fishing Leopards Natural World

ANIMALS CALL

THUNDER RUMBLES

LEOPARD GRUNTS

In a remote corner of Africa...

..an extraordinary bond has formed.

BRAD BESTELINK: The female is now the one that is accepting us more.

She's completely unfazed by us.

Wild leopards have no reason to trust humans.

When they do, a magic door is opened...

..into the private life of Africa's most secretive predator.

I knew that from that point

the dynamic between those two was going to change.

SNARLING

This is the story of a remarkable two-year journey...

He seems to be a bit of a fumbling fool.

..with a family that's under pressure.

If anybody's going to get into trouble,

it's probably going to be him.

Their enemies are strong...

..and for these cats,

nine lives may not be enough.

You don't know how this is going to play out.

SNARLING

If they're going to make it...

..they will have to seize every opportunity.

The Savuti River in northern Botswana is a magnet for wildlife.

And where the herds graze, predators follow.

Leopards, however, are surprisingly vulnerable.

As solitary animals, they are no match for the prides

and packs of their rivals.

For a mother with young cubs, this is a dangerous place.

I remember the first time that I saw this leopard,

she had killed an impala.

I knew that this leopard had young cubs,

so I gave it quite a lot of space.

After a little while, slowly, one of the cubs emerged.

The mother climbed a tree right in front of us,

and naturally the cubs followed the mother.

In a weird way, it was almost as if she was presenting those cubs to us.

I guessed the cubs to be three to four months old...

..in human terms, the equivalent of a two- or three-year-old.

My initial instinct was not to get involved with this...

with this family.

I've had a bad experience in the past

where I followed a mother leopard and she,

over a period of a year-and-a-half, lost all three of her cubs.

It was incredibly sad.

I didn't know if I wanted to go through that again.

For film-maker Brad Bestelink, the chance encounter was

the start of a long and nerve-racking journey.

Despite his misgivings, Brad teamed up with friend

and fellow cameraman Richard Uren

to try to document the fate of their newly-adopted leopard family.

This place is peppered with lions, wild dogs, hyenas.

There's a whole bunch of threats

that could impact on a really young family of leopards.

It's going to be...

it's going to be a tough job for her to keep those cubs alive.

LION ROARS

It will take around two years for the mother to raise her family.

To succeed, she'll have to work hard to feed her youngsters -

an impatient young male...

..and his more cautious sister.

Today, all three of them are having to wait their turn.

Adult males are known to kill cubs that aren't their own.

But judging from the mother's relaxed attitude,

the gate-crasher is almost certainly her mate.

The young male is eager to meet his father.

Alas, leopards are not among nature's doting dads.

For the snubbed son, it's a bad start

to a day that's about to get a whole lot worse.

Seeking to assert himself perhaps,

the young male lays claim to the carcass.

There are still plenty of leftovers.

FLIES BUZZ

His mother seems to be content to watch him feed...

..just so long as he keeps the family's dinner safely stashed.

Trees ought to provide secure storage for hard-won spoils -

a place beyond the reach of hyenas

and other thieves.

It's a juvenile blunder...

..and his timing could hardly be worse.

African wild dogs are formidable pack hunters...

..capable of killing adult leopards, as well as cubs.

The cats need to move fast.

Right now, he is not his mother's favourite

yet for both cubs

this has been a useful lesson.

To stay alive, you must stay alert.

The pack soon gives up and moves on.

In their hurry to steal from the leopards,

they've missed a far easier opportunity...

..an opportunity that hasn't escaped the mother.

If she can catch it,

the impala fawn will provide a welcome bonus for her own offspring.

One mother's loss is another's gain.

And she seems to have forgotten about her son's earlier blunder.

The young male is quick to accept the gift.

It's just what he needs to improve his handling skills.

He grabs the carcass and pounces on it and rolls with it

and tries to kill it and claw it...

..living out his fantasy of what he wanted to be when he grew up.

He's a really... quite a comical character to watch.

Having seen his mother take the carcass up the tree,

he really made an effort to do the same.

There's no shame in trying...

..and at least he's got the right idea.

If he can stay out of trouble,

his enthusiastic spirit should serve him well.

The family's territory is a patchwork

of thickets and grassy clearings

overlooked by a small hill known as Leopard Rock.

To keep her cubs alive in this dangerous neighbourhood,

the mother must make sure they stay hidden.

That is no easy task when the guinea fowl are constantly giving you away.

GUINEA FOWL CALLS

The anxious mother needs to hurry her cubs along.

She has literally taken a piece of meat away from the cub

and is moving them a bit further on

to some more dense bush, somewhere where there's a bit more cover.

It's just to get them out of harm's way.

Hyenas will pick up their scent -

they will slowly move in trying to find the cubs.

They are very easy prey.

Cleaning the cubs will help them go undetected.

Bath time, however, requires co-operation

which isn't always forthcoming.

The daughter is very disciplined, she stays put and...

and goes through the process

but, er, trying to pin the young boy down for a cleaning

is a difficult task.

When he goes through his bath process,

he really doesn't like it, he is always trying to wriggle away,

and just rebels against anything the mother tries to enforce on him.

The mother has already done well to get both of her cubs

through their first few months, but she has a long way to go.

The mothers are solitary.

There's no baby-sitting or other individuals that'll help

in the raising of these cubs.

Having an anchor point within their territory

where the mother can safely leave those cubs

is vital to their survival.

Leopard Rock, with its steep sides and secret crevices,

is a place where the youngsters can sit tight,

beyond the reach of more powerful predators.

With her two cubs carefully hidden away,

the mother is free to go and hunt.

It could be days before she returns.

As the land dries, thirsty animals are starting to gather at the river.

Its shrinking pools contain the only water for miles around...

..and, with each passing week, the volume of traffic is increasing.

It was several months ago that Brad and Richard first saw the cubs...

and, since that time, the young leopards have grown rapidly,

almost doubling in size.

These adolescents, however, have a lot to learn.

If they're going to succeed, they need to leave Leopard Rock

and start hunting for themselves.

It isn't long before the daughter spots a bite-sized target,

a fat little ostrich chick would be

a delicious mouthful.

But its sharp-eyed mother is no fool.

Flapping her wings, she distracts the hunter

and then lures it away on a wild-goose chase.

By the time the daughter realises she's been conned...

..her meal is nowhere to be seen.

GRUNTING AND SPLASHING

The male, meanwhile, is intrigued by the commotion at the river.

Leopards are loners that live by their wits.

Their entire survival strategy depends on their ability

to notice things...

..and learn quickly.

However, the young male's naturally inquisitive nature

could be his downfall.

Curiosity can sometimes kill the cat.

As the male has grown up,

his personality has really started to become obvious.

He's a typical boy...

..bolder than he needs to be, and, er, continually making mistakes.

There's very little caution.

ELEPHANT ROARS

ELEPHANT BELLOWS

He doesn't seem to realise scale and size.

If anybody's going to get into trouble,

it's probably going to be him.

ELEPHANT BELLOWS

The young female, still hungry,

has now caught up with her brother at the river.

ELEPHANT CONTINUES TO BELLOW

The amount of activity here must be intimidating...

..and without their mother to look after them,

the young explorers could be getting into trouble.

GUINEA FOWL CALLS

GUINEA FOWL CONTINUES TO CALL

The wildebeest might have escaped

but the cubs have not gone unnoticed.

Given the chance, lions will kill other predators,

especially leopards.

I've seen lions kill leopards before.

Particularly at a young age,

they don't have the skills to escape them.

The smaller cats are only safe as long as they hold their nerve

and stay put.

When it looks as if the lions are less alert...

..the would-be hunters prepare

to run for their lives.

Badly shaken, the cubs retreat to Leopard Rock.

The daughter, in particular,

is quick to seek her mother's reassurance.

Over the past few months,

it appears that the two females have become closer and more affectionate.

With two growing teenagers still depending on her,

it's the mother who's now coming under pressure.

Feeding her family is only going to get harder.

ANIMAL CALLS

This year, the dry season is unusually harsh.

Even the river, normally a lifeline for the animals,

has almost disappeared.

Yet the mud soup that remains could be concealing a free lunch...,

..if only the leopards can figure out what it is...

..and how to get it.

Are these weird apparitions something to fear...

..or a harmless and much-needed source of food?

The mother has probably never seen

a live catfish before.

Eventually she loses courage...

..perhaps her son will be bolder.

He has spotted some fish of his own -

when they stop moving, though,

he seems not to know where they've gone.

It's the elephant that finally reveals them.

You could almost see like a light bulb going on...

..and literally,

right after the elephant pulled out, he went straight in.

It was like playing

with soap in the shower -

he just sort of fumbled around

and didn't know what to do.

There's mud being splattered

on his body and on his face.

Finally he actually bit it,

which gave him a grip on it.

I just remember that expression when he stood up.

He was so proud of his achievement.

He was quite stoked.

Over the next two weeks,

the leopards continue to plunder the mud-choked pools.

In times of plenty, leopards, like other cats, will gorge themselves,

eating up to a quarter of their bodyweight at a single sitting.

It's only a new development that threatens to bring

an end to the feast.

Rain that fell several months ago

and over a thousand miles away is at last arriving here.

For the stranded catfish, the water can't come fast enough.

Another week of flooding,

and this will be a river

several metres deep.

Unless they've got the nerve to jump in,

the leopards are going to have to find their meals elsewhere.

Away from the river, the land is still bone dry.

By now, the cubs should be starting to hunt more regular prey,

but with little in the way of cover, it's difficult to stalk anything.

While the young female targets a guinea fowl...

..the male, typically, is being a little more ambitious.

LEOPARD GROWLS

GUINEA FOWL SQUAWK

The longer the cubs fail to feed themselves,

the greater the strain on their mother.

Perhaps the frustrated hunters will fare better

under the cover of darkness.

Like all cats, leopards have superb night vision and acute hearing.

ANIMALS GRUNT AND CROAK

The waters are brimming with noisy new nightlife

and some of the river's former residents have now returned.

Could the channel, once again,

prove a successful hunting ground even though it's full?

The catfish are still here

chasing smaller fish into the shallows.

If only they can catch them,

the hungry leopards know that they will be good to eat.

You could see they were totally intrigued

by the snaking movement in the water.

Heads right down, following the swirls of the catfish

as they moved up and down.

So curious and so focused on them.

I had no idea what they were going to do.

It's the daughter, normally so cautious, who tries first.

Her second strike is more daring...

..but her claws just aren't long enough to get a grip.

She needs to pluck up her courage

and, quite literally, sink her teeth into the problem.

Take three,

and she's got it!

Having watched her, the rest of the family are soon following suit...

..and getting in on the act.

While leopards are known to collect fish from drying rivers,

to actually hunt them when the water's high

is something rarely witnessed.

Certainly, after a lifetime in the African bush,

it's behaviour that Brad has never seen before.

To see these individuals, the two cubs and mom...

..actually run and dive into the river...

..to see that, that really is a remarkable piece of behaviour.

All three of these leopards are using the same technique

to catch these catfish.

They dive in, pin the thing down and use their mouths to actually bite it.

That's hunting - active predation on fish out of a river.

They caught catfish that the necks of the catfish were bigger

than their own.

Their new-found knowledge of catfish and how to catch them

won't just help them fill their bellies tonight...

..it will stick with these leopards for the rest of their lives.

THUNDER CRASHES

The family has taken a giant leap towards survival

and the cubs are starting to come of age.

Over the next month,

these fully-fledged fishing leopards continue to feast.

Their talent for exploiting opportunities,

no matter how fleeting, is enabling them to thrive, at least for now.

The catfish could melt away at any moment,

but for a family that's continually under pressure,

this is a rare period when everyone can relax.

CONTENTED GROWLING

Having held back for so long,

the daughter appears to be gaining in confidence.

It's a change the film team is noticing.

The female is now the one that is accepting us more.

There's a natural tendency for the mom

and the male to sort of circle us and keep their distance...

..but the young female, she's definitely taken a shine to us.

Very often we've had her stick her head in

and sort of just has a good look.

You've got these eyes sort of peeping,

and the head moving, watching you...

..completely unfazed by us.

We've never had that response out of the male.

She's definitely the most trusting of the two.

THUNDER RUMBLES

November -

and the first big storm signals the arrival of the wet season.

Within the family, a storm of a different kind is brewing.

For one of the cubs, it heralds a perilous new chapter.

The cubs are almost fully grown...

ROARING

..and they're starting to act their age.

Over the past few days, brother and sister have been together...

..very active, very playful, which is quite unusual.

There's definitely something going on.

She's definitely starting to give off a signal.

At around two years old, a female leopard reaches a turning point.

She's obviously becoming sexually mature,

and that is triggering something in his behaviour.

GROWLING

It's only play but sooner or later

her scent will attract

the big boys...

..and no suitor is going

to tolerate the young male.

Yet the daughter, too,

is courting danger.

With leopards, the female when she becomes

ready to mate, all of a sudden poses a threat to the mother.

She almost takes the place of the mother,

which obviously wouldn't really be tolerated.

When she picks up her daughter's scent, the mother seems displeased.

It was as if she was smelling a female from another territory,

rather than her daughter.

FIERCE GROWLING

I knew that from that point,

the dynamic between those two was going to change.

When they first made contact,

the mother just lay down

and let the cubs approach her.

The male sort of came up to her

and brushed past and moved off.

As the female started to approach, the mother really started to snarl.

SNARLING

Every time the young female came close to her,

she was very hostile towards her, and the daughter was, you know,

obviously not understanding what was going on, persisting

and trying to make contact - that familiarity that she's so used to.

SNARLING CONTINUES

FIERCE SNARLING

She eventually got too close,

and it ended up in quite a serious fight.

GROWLING AND ROARING

You can imagine the surprise on the daughter's face.

It's just not something that she would ever expect from her mother.

SNARLING CONTINUES

The message is unmistakable...

..the daughter is no longer one of the family.

If the female cub gets pushed out

at this stage of her life,

she's not equipped

to survive on her own.

THUNDER CRASHES

I haven't seen her take down a fair-sized animal yet.

It's kind of worrying - you don't know how this is going to play out.

THUNDER CRASHES

RAIN POURS

The wet season is now well established

and for the evicted daughter, it's crunch time.

She may be old enough to start a family of her own,

yet she's never been so alone

or so hungry.

As days stretch into weeks,

her struggle to stay alive becomes increasingly obvious.

Ever more desperate, she's snatching at any opportunity...

..but a cat of this size can't live off squirrels forever.

If she's going to survive, the young female needs to up her game.

For the starving outcast, the clouds may have a silver lining.

The wet season is also the birth season,

and babies offer promising targets.

A zebra foal would keep her fed for a week...

..but she's quickly spotted by its vigilant mother.

Unwilling to give up, the daughter tries a riskier tactic...

..perhaps by flaunting herself she will create enough panic

to separate the foal from its mother.

It's a dangerous game of bluff.

One well-aimed hoof could kill the leopard...

..and the herd seems determined to do so.

Her botched hunt is yet another serious setback...

..and those who have watched her fail

seem to delight in taunting her.

BIRDS CHIRRUP

Elsewhere, her brother

is enjoying a life of ease.

Thanks to mother, his belly, at least, is full.

In fact, the male has now outgrown his provider.

At around 50 kilos, his prospects of survival are now stronger than ever.

It's the fate of the weakening daughter

that continues to worry Brad.

Alone and pushed to the edge of her mother's territory,

she's failing to make the grade as a hunter.

Today it's a young kudu that has caught her eye...

..but she's got as close as this many times before and still failed.

LEOPARD GROWLS

LEOPARD GROWLS

KUDO CRIES OUT

KUDO CONTINUES TO CRY OUT

She hasn't made the quickest or cleanest of kills.

Its significance however could hardly be greater.

To the huge relief of the film team,

the daughter has finally come of age.

Two years ago when we started this project,

I didn't expect that I'd be in this situation now.

It's quite astounding that this family has managed to survive.

The young female, she's very able,

she's made her first really big kill and is a competent hunter.

The male, he's no threat to his mother,

so he will linger in her territory for quite a long time...

..scrounging carcasses from her

and sort of piggy-backing on her success.

In time, a big male will come in

and probably give the young boy the hiding he's

due and send him on his way, make him work for a living.

The mother is one of the most exceptional leopards

I've ever spent time with.

She really has done an amazing job, she's raised both of them...

..quite a feat for a leopard -

to successfully raise two cubs to full maturity.

These special cats have coped

with everything nature has thrown at them -

breaking boundaries, they've even learnt to fish.

In this toughest of places,

they've shown what it takes

for not one leopard,

but an entire family, to survive.