https://www.wideopenspaces.com/leopard-vs-wildebeest/
Posted by Travis Smola
This leopard may never get another meal this easily.
When it comes to predators and prey in the African bush, life is not easy for either side. The predators are perfectly adapted to make meals of the many plains animals roaming the wilderness and the prey have adapted to avoid said predators. Every day is a struggle to survive and live to see another day. Even if you are a predator, life is never easy.
Unless of course, you get lucky. That seems to be the case with this mother leopard in Tanzania's Serengeti National Park. As tourists watch with cameras rolling, the leopard spots a baby wildebeest standing alone all by itself.
The baby has no idea danger is lurking close and the leopard cannot believe her luck. Watch as she stalks to within a few feet of the clueless ungulate before launching her attack.
https://youtu.be/QZigUVdVLGAThe way the leopard just stopped dead in her tracks that close to her prey says it all. She was clearly in total disbelief that this tasty snack was all alone. The leopard was likely looking for an angry mother wildebeest to come charging in to defend her young at any minute. When it did not happen, the leopard took the gimmie. This footage was shot by Francis Kijazi, a tour guide while taking a client through the park.
They watched this leopard for almost 40 minutes before it stumbled upon the wildebeest. According to the video's description, they believe the baby animal became separated from its mother during a migration walk, which would explain why it was unguarded.
"It was very confused with both the presence and behavior of the baby," Kijazi said in the description.
As any predator likely would be, it is not often one gets a meal exerting this little of an effort. The description also notes the leopard had a three-month old cub. While it is hard to watch such a one-sided affair like this, the mother leopard's kill just made things a lot easier for her and her young, likely increasing the cub's survival odds. Such is the way things go in nature, it is not pretty, but you are either the predator or the prey and there is little in-between.
