Legadema: Light from the sky
The other day I got a video as a forward from my friend. It is about a leopard saving a baby baboon and I was amused by it. Two days later, I happened to watch a show on the National Geographic Channel about the same leopard. The show named “Eye of the Leopard” is an intimate view in to the life of a leopard. It was amazing and I was spellbound by the documentary.
Documentary makers Dereck and Beverly Joubert started shooting the life of a leopard since it was a eight days old cub in the wilds of Mombo, Botswana. The baby was named “Legadema”, which means, “light from sky” in Botswana’s national language Setswana. The Joubert couple spent three and half years of perilous life closely watching the life of Legadema to come up with this fabulous documentary.
Unlike many other animals, leopards hunt and live alone. These deadly predators depend on their intelligence and stealth ness.
As a cub Legadema spends her life hiding from the perils of wilds. Groups of baboons, Hungry hyenas, deadly lions always try to drag the cub and mother out of den. When the mother is out for hunting, Legadema learns her own lessons spotting the dangers by the sounds of various other animals. Her mother’s ‘back home’ is indicated by a cub call from the mother when she is near the den. Legadema’s mother teaches her how to pin down on the prey. When she was five month’s old, she learns to kill a prey, a live impala, brought by her mother. Legadema starts her hunting with squirrels. I was surprised to know that leopards also prey on squirrels.
One day, Legadema commits a grave mistake. She eats her mother’s kill but could not protect the kill and drops the carcass over to hyenas. This angers her mother and the mother hisses at her and drives her away. Legadema moves on to build her own territory.
One day Legadema kills an adult female baboon and finds a baby baboon clinging to the baboon. That is when an amazing thing happens. Legadema pauses for a while and picks the baby baboon gently into the mouth and takes her to the top of the tree. She plays with it like baboon’s own mother. She protects the baby all night from falling down. The two cuddle up and went to sleep. Unfortunately the baby baboon being so weak dies that night.
Legadema moves on with her life dodging the dangers of lions, hyenas and groups of baboons. The Jouberts are planning to go back and shoot the ‘mother Legadema’. The leopard cubs do not survive and considering Legadema is young and inexperienced, Jouberts think she might not be able to protect them. But Legadema is a brave leopard and always finds way to make things work out. Im waiting for the next show on Legadema.
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