While searching for Muniya, I was reminded of another leopard

When I’m in the forest trying to understand a particular leopard, I try to think like a leopard. Obviously that means taking yourself to a different place, it means trying to see the forest in the way a leopard sees the trees, the grasses, the rocks and the lives of others. I’ve been looking for sign of Muniya, the leopardess of the forest next to me, the image below is part of that forest.

The image at the top is Toto, another leopardess.

Yesterday, after several days where I spent an hour or two searching for sign of Muniya, I thought of Toto. This morning I added to the Mission Leopard page on Leopard Behaviour - it concerned the video below, about Toto, the jade-eyed leopard.

I’ve been asking a lot of people about Muniya. For three months now, there’s been no sight or sign of her. This is unusual. Regular readers may remember that I’ve written that Muniya has a cub. It’s crossed my mind that Muniya may have moved herself and her offspring to a place she feels more comfortable, where there’s the opportunity to be safer. It could well be Muniya moved because of prey possibilities, it could be connected to the monsoon.

I’ve been wondering. And hoping for the best.

Yesterday I was thinking about the difficulties for a leopardess raising a cub or two or three in today’s world. That’s when Toto popped into my head — to be exact, Toto and her mother Fig, a beautiful, remarkable leopardess.

To me, they are all beautiful, remarkable.

That’s why I’d love you to watch the video. To get an idea of just how beautiful, remarkable they are. The story also shows the bond between Fig and Toto. It’s a closeness which cannot be beaten. The documentary, released in 2020, remains my favourite leopard film but there’s others I also enjoy. This maybe a contradiction in terms when in my previous Substack I wrote I’m reluctant for there to be a film about the big mountain leopard Thagu but that’s another story, there’s reasons right now.

My struggle is that not enough people understand how beautiful, remarkable, these big cats are. Part of the mission now is to increase that understanding. A friend, a naturalist, a man who would soar like an eagle if he could, said to me recently that he thinks humanity is now in the docile state in that we have lost touch with the things that truly matter, our care has become superficial. Maybe. All I know is that we have to do better.

At the bottom of the Leopard Behaviour reference to the film, under a sub-title Why This story Matters is written:

As Jeremy Irons’ narration poignantly concludes: “If we can learn to respect, protect, and celebrate all such creatures struggling to survive in this fragile mosaic, this jade eyed leopard may yet have a future. Hope springs eternal” .

Those words, respect, protect and celebrate, are what leopards need, most of the eight sub-species are struggling, there are individuals struggling across the leopard range.

I hope Muniya is not struggling. I just hope Muniya and her cub are still alive. I hope Muniya is able to have a bond with her cub in the way Fig and Toto showed the care and tenderness, the way of the leopard.

I’ll be writing a lot more about the way of the leopard, I immerse myself in their world as much as I can to increase my own understanding but it is the desire to protect which grows stronger regardless. Maybe by watching the film you’ll understand a bit more why.

I’ve written before that it is always a joy and relief when there is proof of life of the leopard Thagu. I want to have that feeling by Muniya somehow showing herself. I don’t need to see leopards, in fact I’m always apologetic for intruding on a big cat’s space, a camera trap image, a scrape on a tree or on the ground, a pugmark, the smell of the spray to mark territory, these things, just one of them, they can be enough. I accept nature is nature and there are non man-made causes bringing leopards to their end but when too large a chunk of life is dealing with the trafficking of leopard body parts, it’s only natural to sometimes wonder if the worst has happened.

Again, I do hope you watch the film, yes, I’m being persistent. I think Nat Geo did a wonderful job and the narration by Jeremy Irons is superb. The true stars are of course Toto and her mother Fig. I just hope, far from the limelight, a little leopard whose mother is Muniya, has a future.

Hope springs eternal.