In most people’s minds, leopards are vigorous and agile, and they are powerful hunters on the grassland. However, photographer Stephen Wright from the United Kingdom has been tracking and photographing a leopard named Chipazua for more than three years since 2017, and discovered that since its birth, it has never hunted alone. “For a living. This is extremely rare among leopards.
”NEET” Leopard
Stephen Wright is a British photographer, he was particularly fond of shooting wild animals. One day in 2017, at a gathering of friends, Stephen said to his friends that he was going to the African savannah to track and photograph animals. One of them, Jack Bauer, asked him: “What animal do you want to photograph this time?”
“Leopard, a powerful hunter on the grassland.” Stephen said without hesitation. Jack couldn’t help but shine. He is a painter who is very interested in large animals and offered to go to Africa together. He believes that perhaps this experience can give him a lot of inspiration.
In this way, Stephen and Jack came to the African savannah together. In the beginning, Stephen just shot casually, and it didn’t take long before he fell in love with a female leopard Maleca who was about to give birth. He wanted to wait for the baby leopard to be born, and take photos of it. From birth to adulthood, it should be quite interesting to understand the growth process of a leopard.
However, the development of things was unexpected and even shocked Stephen and Jack.
Maleca gave birth to a female leopard, and Stephen named it Chipazua. Chipazua has been slumbering since he was a child, and grew up slowly relying on Malaika’s feeding. Maleka is an excellent hunter, and when Chipazúa grows up, he tries to teach it to hunt. But Chipazuya is lazy, she just wants to sleep, not hunting.
In a blink of an eye, Chipazua was two years old and had become an adult leopard. Maleca tried to drive it out of the territory, but Chipazua refused to leave no matter what. Upon seeing this, Jack said that he could not understand: “Why did Mallaika drive away his daughter?” Stephen explained to him: “The leopard is a solitary animal, whether it is a male or female leopard, it has its own territory. Adult flower Leopard, must leave the mother’s territory and live alone.”
Chipazua refused to leave and stayed in the territory of Maleca until he was three years old. It seems to want to be a leopard that “gnaws old”, which is extremely rare among leopards. It makes Stephen and Jack dumbfounded, so they are more interested in it.
Chipazua spends every day in her mother’s territory, rolling lazily, never hunting, waiting for her mother to hunt back and share a piece of the cake from her mother. Over time, Maleca became bored with it. Chipazua’s appetite was as large as his own, but he refused to hunt, which undoubtedly doubled Maleka’s pressure to survive.
One morning, after successfully preying, Mallaika, like all leopards, dragged its prey up a big tree and enjoyed it quietly. It didn’t plan to care about Chipazua anymore. Chipazua, who was still asleep, woke up immediately after smelling the food, and quickly climbed up the tree, asking Maleca to share food. Maleka refused and tried to push Chipazúa away, but Chipazúa refused to leave and made a noise.
This action is very dangerous, because the noise will attract the attention of the surrounding animals. The baboon will sound the alarm to expose the leopard, so that more beasts will besiege the leopard and grab food. Facing Chipazua’s unreasonable troubles, Maleka had to abandon his prey and leave here for safety, so that Chipazua could shut up. Chipazua ate delicious food like this.
Jack, who witnessed this scene, felt incredible. He smiled and said: “Chipazu is lazy, too shameless!” Stephen also smiled: “Look at how Mallaika will deal with it next.” The
angry Mallaika seemed to fall into it. After meditation, it probably felt desperate for this kind of life, and turned and walked further.
After eating enough, Chipazua lay down leisurely for a while, and then went to the river to drink water slowly. Usually, when he comes here to drink water, he will see Malaika. But this time, while drinking water, he looked around and waited for a long time without waiting for Malaika.
It turned out that in order to completely leave her daughter, Maleca moved to a place three thousand kilometers away. Stephen told Jack that, in fact, it is impossible for a female leopard to give up her territory for her child, and even if she is separated from her child, there will be overlaps between her territories and her child. The reason why Maleca chose to separate completely is probably because he was completely disappointed in her daughter. After Jack understood, he began to worry about Chipazúa: “From now on, it will have to face the dangerous nature alone.” As
night fell, and Maleka was still missing, Chipazúa clearly knew that his mother was away. It’s gone.
The night is a good time for the leopard to hunt for food, but Chipazua is sleeping in the tree, and danger is quietly coming.
Snatch food
places leopards and lions, hyenas often have overlapping territory, while the lion is a strong sense of territory, and it appears in front of any predator would have been its attack. At this time, Parker the Lion was patrolling its territory.
Chipazua just woke up, it should be hungry, ready to find something to eat, and is walking in the direction of Parker.
Jack was very nervous when he saw this in front of the camera: “It’s over, Chipazua has no combat experience, and Parker is three times his size. It must not be able to beat Parker.” Stephen said: “This is nature, the survival of the fittest. ”
However, Chipazua was lucky. It quickly heard Parker’s voice and changed direction without hesitation. At this moment, Parker seemed to smell another smell, was attracted away, and turned to another place. Chipazua and Parker did not meet, it escaped.
Chipazua continued to walk forward, and after a while, he saw two hyenas eating rotting animal carcasses. Generally speaking, leopards will not provoke hyenas. For one thing, leopards prefer to eat fresh meat than rotting corpses. Secondly, hyenas are very fierce and possess sharp teeth that smash bones. Leopards may not be their opponents.
But Chipazuya was so hungry, staring at the rotting wreck, quietly approached the hyena. Jack exclaimed: “What is it doing? It wants to snatch food from the hyena?” Stephen nodded, “I see, yes. Although there is a certain danger, the hyena’s night vision ability is not as good as that of the leopard. Chipatzu It’s not impossible for Ya to succeed.”
Chipazua walked behind the hyenas step by step and picked up a small piece of internal organs when they were not paying attention. Hyenas are not good to bully, and when they find Chipazua, they immediately chase him away. Chipazua hadn’t noticed the danger yet, and after eating the small piece of internal organs, he kept looting for food. The two hyenas were repeatedly disturbed by it, and finally became angry and yelled. Amid the barking of hyenas, a group of hyenas came one after another.
Chipazua knew that he had no chance of winning. If he did not leave quickly, the hyenas would surround him and bite to death. Chipazua could only escape, but in the process of escaping, it was still bitten by a hound, and a visible scar appeared on his face. Fortunately, no other parts of the body were injured.
Keqipazuya has to solve the problem of hunger, which is also the biggest problem it currently faces. Because of exhaustion, it cannot hunt, and can only eat the remains of other animals to satisfy its hunger. Stephen couldn’t help but said to Jack: “I have photographed animals for so many years. I really have never seen such a lazy leopard.” Jack laughed and said, “This time,
it opened our eyes to both you and me.” When Pazuya was worried about food, suddenly, an elderly male leopard came to this area. Stephen called this elderly leopard Luambe. Stephen also said that nature is cruel, and many animals cannot live to old age. It is even more difficult for them to die. Leopard can live safely to old age, it must be very cautious and tenacious.
At this time, Luanbei was dragging prey about twice its weight to a large hidden tree to eat. The temptation of this ready-made prey to Chipazúa is too great, and it intends to use a method similar to that of its mother, Maleka, to deal with Luambe, so as to achieve the purpose of snatching food.
Chipazua came to the tree proficiently, and Luanbe immediately warned it. But Chipazuya didn’t pay attention at all, and lay down on the ground calmly. Luanbe, who was on the tree, blinked, as if a little dazed, not knowing what Chipazua wanted to do.
And Chipazuya saw that Luanbe hadn’t handed over the food obediently, so he kept sending out signals from below to let everyone know that leopards were eating here. Sure enough, many animals were attracted by Chipazua. Baboons are sounding alarms, squirrels are calling, and more and more animals join the screaming camp.
Luanbei finally panicked. He probably had never been watched by so many eyes at the same time, and he was even more worried that ferocious animals would come to deal with him. So it gave up its prey decisively and left quickly.
Chipazua’s “rogue” tactics succeeded again. But just as it was about to sit back and enjoy its success, Parker the Lion came upon the news. And this time, Parker did not come alone, but with a group of lions.
“Oh my God! This is really too dangerous.” Jack’s heart beat suddenly. Although he also thinks Chipazua is a rascal, but after a long time of observation, he will inevitably have feelings for it and look forward to it becoming better. Stephen is much more calm: “It must make a decision quickly, give up its prey, and leave quickly to have a chance to escape.” It
is also a coincidence that Chipazua really does not miss the prey as Stephen said. Turn around and leave, and escape the scene as quickly as possible. In this way, although its plan to grab food failed, its life was temporarily saved.
Try hunting
through so much, Qipazuya may be aware, after all, it is the need to hunt, otherwise, can only starve to death in the wilderness.
In the evening, Chipazura decided to start hunting. It wandered around, saw a group of antelopes that were resting, and slowly approached them. Perhaps Chipazua was not sure, and stopped when he was still some distance away from the antelope herd. Jack felt weird: “Why doesn’t it attack?” Stephen replied: “Some leopards hunt at night and wait for the prey to fall asleep before launching an attack. In this way, the success rate is relatively high.” Jack understood, and suddenly felt strange. Pazuya is quite smart.
However, the development of things is beyond imagination.
Chipazua was waiting for her prey to sleep soundly, but she couldn’t help her sleepiness, yawned, changed a more comfortable position, and fell asleep near the prey. Stephen laughed: “Hunting is still too difficult for him!” After that, Stephen and Jack stopped staring at the screen and were ready to go to sleep. Jack also said: “This can’t be blamed on Chipazuya. It’s so late, and we can’t hold it.” It was
n’t until the morning sun shone on him that Chipazua woke up and slowly opened his eyes. There is no doubt that the best hunting time was missed last night, and now it is even more hungry. But hunting during the day is more difficult than at night, because the animals can see more clearly and react faster.
After walking for a while, Chipazua saw a herd of antelopes. It did not pick one of them to attack. Maybe it feels that it is chasing head-on and has no great chance of winning. It chose to attack by surprise, walked into the gully, and approached the antelope from low. But the antelopes were very vigilant. When Chipazúa was about to ambush them, they had already seen Chipazúa and fled in all directions.
Chipazuya rushed to the air, and then he stopped ambushing the antelope herd, because a dozen pairs of eyes looked around and it was easy to spot. Therefore, it is ready to deal with the antelope acting alone.
Soon, Chipazua found an antelope, and it hurriedly got down and moved forward slowly. After a while, Chipazua couldn’t help but raise his head, wanting to see if the other party found it. This is the hunter’s taboo. Chipazua exposed himself as soon as he raised his head. When he was seen by the antelope, he ran away.
In desperation, Chipazua could only continue to eat leftovers leftovers from other animals.
As the days passed, Chipazuya didn’t know that the land had changed to a new owner. The young and robust Kane defeated the old leopard Luambe and became the new ruler, occupying the territory and the female leopard. In order to declare its sovereignty, Kane Ge, while patrolling the territory, left his own taste in various places.
One day, Chipazua smelled the scent left by Kane’s song. It liked the taste very much and entered the estrus for the first time. What’s more interesting is that Chipazua and Kaneko soon met unexpectedly in the woods. Chipazua was obviously tempted and took the initiative to show his charm to Kane.
However, it was the first time that Kaine became the owner of the territory, and he had no experience with the opposite sex. After looking at Chipazua, he left without looking back. Chipazuya didn’t want to miss Kane’s song, so he followed. It will follow wherever Kanege goes, and it continues to express its love for Kanege along the way. Kane’s attitude is always indifferent.
Stephen said that this situation is also very rare, usually male leopards chasing female leopards for courtship, no female leopards chasing male leopards backwards. Chipazua’s various behaviors can be described as subverting his imagination.
After chasing for most of the day, they unexpectedly met the lions led by Parker. However, the lions only found Kane’s song walking ahead, but did not see Chipazuya following behind. Kaynge was quick to respond and climbed onto a tree in a thunderous manner. The lions did not want to give up driving Kane Song easily, and waited two hours under the tree before leaving angrily. During this time, Chipazua has been hiding in a hidden corner, quietly waiting for the lions to leave.
As soon as the lions left, Chipazua came out to greet Kane’s song coming down from the tree.
At that time, the sky was getting dark, Kane probably didn’t expect Chipazua to wait for it, and finally put down his guard, and the two leopards strolled side by side in the night. From now on, they have entered a sweet period. A complicated smile appeared on Jack’s face: “Mother is not here, Chipazua probably wants to rely on her husband.” Stephen said: “After the sweet period, once Chipazua becomes pregnant, Kane will Leave, because according to the leopard’s habit, the male leopard is not responsible for feeding the leopard.” Jack was surprised. He didn’t know what Chipazua would do in the future. It would be difficult for him to even feed himself. How to take care of the children?
As Chipazúa became pregnant, Kaine really separated from him.
But since becoming pregnant, Chipazua may have realized its responsibility as a mother, and it has undergone earth-shaking changes. It is no longer lazy and does not sleep all day. It starts to learn to hunt like its mother, Maleka. Chipazua climbed to a tree and hid himself. The tree was full of sweet flowers, which fell to the ground when the wind blows. It knows that antelopes like to eat these flowers, and Malaika used to hide in such trees to ambush antelopes.
Sure enough, the fragrance of the flowers attracted several antelopes, and they came under the tree to prepare a feast. When they were immersed in the joy of eating, Chipazúa flew down from the tree in good time and successfully caught one of the antelopes. This was its first successful hunt, and it opened a new chapter in life.
Stephen and Jack smiled knowingly, and finally felt that Chipazua looked like a real leopard.
In July 2020, Stephen finished filming and returned to the UK. After post-production and finishing, in April 2021, the film will be placed on various platforms for playback. After the film was aired, it became very popular. The audience was shocked by Chipazua’s unusual performance of “Leopard”, and felt that its experience was very magical and extraordinary.
