How to save offspring: the incredible trick of a female leopard

It is incredible what mothers are only capable of when their children are in danger! What only they do not go to protect their child. If dads are aggressive towards children, then all means are good, and mothers cannot be reproached. Moreover, I personally not only do not blame, but even admire the ingenuity of some of them.

I have been watching leopards for many years and studying their behavior. Recently, another amazing ability of these animals was revealed to me.

In Masai Mara there are several beautiful female leopards. One of them is Bagati - a very large and strong female, who for a long time was considered a very good mother.

She managed to raise and send into adulthood three children from two litters, which is considered an incredibly good result for leopards, because, as a rule, more than half of the kittens do not live up to six months.

Of the last two litters, however, Bagati lost all the kittens. What happened to such an experienced mother? The reason for this was a couple of males living in its neighboring territories. A couple of years ago, Bagati gave birth to two kittens from one of them. I have already told you many times that a female leopard is raising kittens alone. Mothers have to leave their babies in the den, where they regularly fall prey to other predators, including male leopards, who always kill other kittens. So it happened this time. A new young male has come to the territory of Bagati ...

... killed the offspring of a competitor, and later captured Bagati herself. Three months later, another two babies were born.

Bagati hid them in an excellent location in the rocks near the river. It would seem that this time a mother taught by bitter experience will be able to raise at least one of them. But nature had plans in this regard ...

Bagati's previous partner returned to his old territory and, of course, first killed the kittens. Bagati was very hard at losing the second litter. She called the children for about a week, and then disappeared from our field of vision. We decided that, most likely, she left in search of safer territories in order to start a new life there. But a few days later we noticed her in the neighboring thickets of shrubs. She stayed. And an amazing plan ripened in her head ...

Having survived the death of the next offspring, Bagati herself came to the returning partner and began to actively pester him. I have never seen such behavior in leopard females. At some point, the male reciprocated her, they switched to mating games, which lasted quite short - only three days. Usually this process in leopards takes at least a week. But Bagati left on the fourth day ...

What was my surprise when, literally three days later, my colleagues said that they had seen Bagati with a young male on the other side of the river (this is exactly the one who killed her kittens from the penultimate litter). She seduced this cat too.

The next three months passed and one kitten was born - a lovely girl who has been growing in relative safety for several months now. After all, both males consider her their daughter ...