Clip: Episode 4 | 5m 36s | Video has closed captioning.
A male leopard moves onto the floodplain, heading straight toward Xudum. This poses a great risk to the female leopard, who is close to giving birth to cubs. But Metsi isn’t on Xudum’s trail. Instead, he’s picked up the scent of a young lechwe lamb – and his hunting style takes everyone by surprise.
Aired: 10/02/24
♪ Narrator: Sure enough... at first light, Xudum is found nearby.
♪ Woodward: Hey, girl.
How are you doing?
Narrator: With the birth of her cubs imminent, Brad and Tristen are following her every move.
♪ Woodward: Come say hello to us.
♪ She's definitely very relaxed with us.
I mean, it's of her own free will in her own domain.
And, you know, it's a very, very beautiful thing to happen.
♪ Random one.
There's a leopard in the middle of the floodplain moving through the water.
Narrator: But only 500 yards from Xudum...
So weird.
Narrator: Greg spots something unusual.
♪ Broad daylight, and there's a leopard just--ha!--walking through the water.
♪ Man on radio: [Indistinct], Greg, you're gonna go for it.
Yeah, I'm on it.
♪ Dimitriadis: If you need any backup with that leopard, just let me know.
I'm not far from you.
Narrator: Anna's joining Greg with the drone.
♪ Hartman: If you ask anyone, oh, yeah, leopards moving through water at noon, why would a leopard be moving around now?
♪ Not something you see very often.
♪ This is Metsi, the young male leopard we've seen around a few times of late, actually.
I wonder what he's up to.
He's been paying so much attention to the smell of something underneath where he's been walking.
♪ He could be sniffing around and smelling Xudum, actually.
That's a possibility.
Narrator: Metsi's nose is leading him closer to Xudum.
♪ Dimitriadis: Oh, there he is.
Wow.
So camouflaged.
♪ Hartman: What he might be smelling is her scent.
Considering that she's in a sausage tree only about 200 meters, 300 meters south of us.
Really unlucky for Xudum then at the moment, because we've got a flood coming in.
It's pushing males onto these islands in higher densities.
♪ Which is a challenge.
♪ Especially, you know, with potential cubs on the way.
♪ Any male leopard who finds cubs that are not his is very likely to kill them.
Yeah, we don't want him sniffing around after Xudum.
♪ He looks beautiful, but he is also sinister.
♪ Narrator: Luckily for Xudum, Metsi is picking up the scent of something else.
♪ Dimitriadis: Those lechwe cottoned on that something's not quite right.
♪ He's hunting.
♪ Trying to pick up on lechwe lambs.
♪ A young lechwe lamb would be perfect for him.
♪ The big leopard wouldn't want to be so obvious.
And Metsi is, I don't even think a leopard could get more obvious.
♪ Amazing, amazing.
I've never seen a leopard hunting like this before.
♪ Whoa.
♪ Here's a female lechwe that has just followed this leopard onto an island, so I can't think of another reason why she would be following him other than to protect her baby.
Narrator: Female lechwe hide their young after birth.
She's not happy with him going in there.
♪ Just the fact that the lechwe is reacting like this tells me that her baby is in there.
Narrator: The lamb is stashed in deep vegetation to keep it safe.
♪ Hopefully for the baby, it's by the elephants, because I don't think Metsi is going to want to get too close to the elephants.
♪ Narrator: It's too well hidden and Metsi gives up.
♪ Hartman: Oh.
That's a surprise.
You've climbed the tree.
♪
