A tourist to the Kruger National Park has captured a video of a leopard trying to make a baboon into a cheeky meal. The plan backfires, however, and pretty soon the leopard finds itself in dire trouble.
Accountant, Ricky da Fonseca, captured the entire sighting between Skukuza and Tshokwane on video and shared it with LatestSightings.com.
“We left on a late afternoon drive from Skukuza, eagerly hoping to catch another glimpse of the lions we had spotted earlier, but the bush had something even more special in store for us,” de Fonseca said.
The sighting was attended by a few cars, one of whom captured a marginally different angle that shows the lead-up to the attack.
This interaction is highly typical of the relationship between baboons and leopards. Leopards are the embodiment of stealth and patience, employing every trick in their camouflage-clad playbook. Baboons, with their system of sentries and alarms, sharp wits, strength, massive fangs and formidable numbers, are, however, no easy prey. As in this video, leopards like to exploit the baboons’ occasional lapses in vigilance or exploit the isolated, the young, or the infirm among the troop. It’s a high-stakes game of strategy, where success for one species means survival, while for the other, it signifies sustenance.
