What an exciting 24 hours. Yesterday evening Nick and Helen caught up with Karula moments after she had killed a duiker and WE watched as she quickly hauled the carcass up into a tree before a hungry hyena could steal it.
This morning when the team got to the same place to check up on the scene, they discovered a big male leopard. His name is Tyson and he is so big that initially Nick thought that he was a lioness. He was there to steal Karula’s kill. He chased her away several times until she eventually got the message. Very exciting … and a little scary.
WE are now worried because nobody has seen the cubs since yesterday. Tyson is not the father of the cubs, WE think that the Jordaan Male is their daddy. It is quite common for male leopards to kill cubs if they are not the father. They do this in order that they can mate with the female when she comes into oestrus again. WE are concerned that he may have killed the cubs and this afternoon Nick and Helen will be on a mission to see if they can find them. Hopefully Karula had them well hidden and Tyson was more concerned with stealing her kill than killing her cubs.
Battle of the leopards!
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Awesome!
Nick and Helen, you did it.
Karula and a cub – congratulations.
Perseverance pays off.
Just got a chance to read this latest blog and ..Wow! I guess it was an exciting 24 hrs.I truly hope there is eventually some good news and the cubs are located. I can only imagine how Nick and Helen are feeling, until they find out one way or the other. I watched the leopard videos on youtube of these last 2 drives and I am grateful they were posted. Thanks! Also thanks for the wonderful, tireless hard work that goes on to bring this experience into our lives. I have seen very few live drives but that is more than ok. I don’t try that often and if I get on, I get on. If I don’t, I don’t. It’s all good. I am not one that has to see every single drive. That’s what the videos are for.
I can’t wait to check back here and see how this story unfolds.
An appreciative fan,
Shiloh
lol what happened to nicks hair? did a baboon get a hold of a pair of buzzers and shave his head?
Hypocritical comments? Yes I do have it connected at work. Why do I do that, because I love watching. And yes if I can connect ahead of time, I do. That being said, so what? I do my work at work well and my employers are very happy with me. And if I do not connect at work which is quite often, so it goes.
I see you are still posting anonymously too. Still spineless and gutless. Let everyone see who you are.
Mike
I wouldn’t take Mike’s hypocritical comments too seriously. That comes from someone that has no problem hogging a connection to the drive when he’s not watching it. I think he’s just afraid that after he remotely connects his work computer to the drive, the unwatched sessions is going to be dropped when he’s on the way to work. And so it should!
WE, you’re doing a great job. You do far more than you need to, but some people are never satisfied. I’d love to know how many of them would take time off their vacation to travel for hours to get replacement parts for something at work. Not many. In fact, a lot of them would rather sit and watch drives than actually do the work they’re being paid to do!
Don’t let a few self centered individuals get you down. You’re doing an awesome job!
Thank you for posting my comment so quickly.
Randi spoke very well in the post after mine. I too am appreciate, do not get me wrong when I criticize. I just think that communication is part of this who process and it has not been done well.
We all look forward to those 1000 slots!!
Mike
What the heck is going on now. Is someone having a laugh at our expense, switching off the cam 2 or 3 times making it impossible to get it back up again. I appreciate the fact that WE is offering this free service to us, but I for one would rather pay a nominal membership fee if t meant that I could actually watch a game drive.
I see someone is copying and pasting my comments anonymously. Please STOP, I am quite capable of posting my own comments here. If you are trying to hurt me, you have no clue as to what you are doing. If you are trying to make a point, post here yourself. Your anonymous post shows that you cannot stand up for yourself in either case. If you do not like what I say, please say so, I am a big boy that can deal with disagreements.
So I will say first hand here so everyone can read them.
I think that WE is forgetting about their customers. They have shown time and time again that communication to us is inconsistent and sometimes downright poor.
For example when there are late starts or drive cancellations, no one takes the time to tell us until sometimes almost an hour after drive time. We still have times where there is no dump and yesterday there was a dump 5 minutes AFTER the game drive. Today there seemed to be 2-3 dumps.
These things are frustrating to us all and to me just represent the fact that we your views are secondary to the drive.
So please take the time to communicate bad or good news on a timely basis. If the drive is going to be an hour late, do not wait 45 minutes to tell us. Tell us early and we can wait an extra 5 minutes while you do so.
Keep the dumps consistent. If the drive starts and you forget to dump, this not the time to say “oh gosh I better do it now”.
When you do these kinds of things, there are tons of comments including mine about how you are losing our respect for the operation.
Mike
An alternative view….
Yes, it is frustrating not to be able to get on the drives or even to get on WE in between the drives. Yes, it is frustrating not to know if a drive has been cancelled.
That being said….it is also painfully obvious how much work it is to keep the equipment going…be it cameras, landies or the internet connections. We viewers have been aware of WE crew using their time off and/or vacation time to work on repairs and maintenance. When both the drives go on they are on camera for 6-8 hours a day, and that doesn’t even include keeping the stationary cameras going during all the daylight hours. And this is all so we in other parts of the world can get a peek into Africa…..for free!!!!!
I for one am appreciative and grateful for all their hard work.
RandyWI
feed back from the faithful bomites!
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whats with the dumps during the drives?
If there is any news regarding Karula’s cubs, could you please post it on the blog, so that those of us who aren’t able to get on the drive will know if they are OK.
Also, Pieter’s photographs are so wonderful. Is there anyplace they are posted so we can see more of them??
Thank you so much for all your efforts to keep us all “in” Africa with you!
RandyWI