On Wednesday, they finally caught Bwana, the leopard I saw on February 21st. Once his collar had been changed, I went along to see him being released. He was in a box with a wooden door in front of a metal grate. The wooden door was removed first, a which point Bwana started growling- he was in a very bad mood! AJ and Louis, who were releasing him, opened the metal door with a rope, from inside the car on which the box was carried. When releasing cheetah like this, it is safe to open the door by hand, but leopards are too dangerous to do this. Bwana shot out and dissappeared into the bush in a few seconds, with Wayne filming the whole thing from the car I was in.
Yesterday, I went with Louis to find Ishara, Bwana's sister. She proved very difficult to track down, and when we finally did see her, she ran away from the car.
We went to see Wahoo, who is a 14 or 15 year old leopard whom Wayne raised by hand. When he reached maturity he was homed in a large enclosure, where visitors can watch him being fed from a large hide. I actually hadn't seen Wahoo since my very first visit here, in 2008.
In the afternoon we put out some bait at several sites for new camera traps. In between doing this, we went to feed Penta, the mother of five cubs whose picture is on 'Diary Entry - Day 31'. Her cubs are very wild and shy, and are rarely seen, so we were very lucky when all five appeared- they must have been hungry! One especially was quite bold, and another very shy, hiding until we started to drive away. Louis said this is the first time all five have come out in the presence of a car like this.
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