KTP Leopard: Dakotah

[GavinW]

Name selected by a forumite who posted a sighting of him first

Thanks for the great news wanderw
Debs and I saw this chap just north of Urikaruus when we were up there in May. I wonder if he is the leopard everyone has been seeing at the waterhole at Urikaruus?
He has a line of about 4 spots going back from his left eye!

[wanderw]

Edited: Dakotah
Hi Gavin
I don't think this is the Urikarius male - I will post a few pix tonight, although my pix are not clear. Maybe someone else can help out with a pic of the U male? I think you and Debbie have found a different (stunning) male leopard!

U also has a female leopard who comes to drink!

[AstroMatt]

KG recently put up two pictures of a leopard scent marking one of his camera traps.

Here are some pictures taken at Rooibrak.

Leopard marking the 'Termite mount"

From the spots on the right rear i'm 100% sure this is Dakotah (compare to the side pic in the guide).
This is great news as it is the first sighting of him in over 2 years. Well done KG on collecting some really important data on this cat.

Apparently there has been a lot of recent leopard activity around Leeuwdril, which is where one of the traps has been recently, so fingers crossed we get some more great images to identify.

If any one has any recent leopard sightings then it would be great if you can send them to me and post them here.

Cheers

[Evel]

I saw this male leopard about 10km north of Urikaruus having a stand off with a cheetah mom of three cubs in December (Is this Lizette?). I will post more photos when I get a chance! Any idea of this leopards identification, he was big. They chased each other around for about 20 minutes, he looked very tired towards the end. The three cubs reunited with mom after she called for about 10 minutes.

[wanderw]

@Evel - a very interesting sighting of Dakotah!

[Evel]

Ok here is the story with pictures as promised. We went on a afternoon game drive from Urikaruus on the 15th of December. We headed north and went passed 13th and 14th waterhole but things were rather quiet. As we came off the 13th loop on our way back to camp I spotted something running through the Auob riverbed towards the dunes. When I looked through my binoculars I saw it was a young cheetah cub. The sighting was brief and when I scanned the dunes I saw two more cubs running towards the first one and after 30 seconds they disappeared. After seeing this I was wondering where mom was so I scanned further down the riverbed. I picked up a large cheetah chasing something into the riverbed and presumed she was hunting. I drove forward and when I arrived at the the cheetah I saw what I though was another one but when I looked again it was a big male leopard standing his ground. It was the last thing I expected, a mother cheetah on the left and the leopard about 20m to the right staring at her.




They stood staring at each other for a few minutes until the leopard started to stalk the cheetah.



Gertie ran away as soon as he approached.

Then the male leopard seemed to loose interest and made his way toward the road.




He then crossed the road keeping his eyes on us.




As soon as he crossed the road you could see Gertie approaching him again and then he turned around and gave chase again.




Gertie ran off again leaving the leopard frustrated.



She lay down for awhile to rest.



After a few minutes he turned around and crossed the road again.





Once he crossed the road Gertie approached him for the third time and he swung around and gave a short chase but I think he realized he was wasting his time and stopped in the middle of the road.





He then turned around and carried on walking in the direction he was heading giving us once last glance.



Its the above type of sightings and the beauty of the Kalagadi that draws me back every year!

[AstroMatt]

So i've been trying to identify this leopard that KG posted in the camera trap thread, but i've come up against a brick wall

Morning All,

I know its a bit late and i apologize , but it has been very hectic here.

The photo was taken at Urikaruus sometime during Arpil 2013. I suspect that it is either Baralong, Tsamma, Tshidi or Seleka but i don't have good enough comparison pictures. What i need is a few good bum shots of these leopards (preferably showing the back of the front right leg). If anyone knows they've seen one of these 4 could they please have a quick look through their pics to see if they might have a photo that can help. If you can positively identify him/her then that would be ideal, otherwise either post the photo here or email it to me.

Of course it might not be any of these 4. There are other leopards that frequent the Urikaruus area so if you have bum shots of them too then please check them and let me know if you get a match or not.

Many thanks and fingers crossed someone comes up trumps.

[AstroMatt]

Anne-marie - thanks for posting those pics, they have been very helpful and i can certainly say that the camera trap leopard is not Tsamma. In fact i've been able to go one step further and positively identify the leopard as Dakotah. He's been seen a few times on the camera trap now so is probably the resident male in the area.

[AstroMatt]

Happy New Year to everyone!

To start 2014 off in the right way i thought I'd put up some photos from our first leopard sighting of the December trip.

2013-12-07 at 09:30 ~2kms south of Urikaruus.


A zoom in on all we could initially see.


After repositioning the car we found a better view and he obliged by lifting his head allowing for us to make a positive identification. However, this view was short lived as he was scared away by a large overland truck that had stopped.


12:44 - After a trip back to Urikaruus for lunch we returned to find him back under the bush.


16:20 - For the next few hours the traffic along the road was very quiet and we managed to get some lovely views as he repositioned himself.


18:49 - Towards sunset he decided to move further over the ridge and he could only be seen when imitating a southern right whale!


19:20 - We decided to quickly check on some lions down the road and to give him some space to come down. When we returned he had come down to the river but didn't like the attention of two cars and went back up theridge.

[wanderw]

Lovely sighting of Dakotah AstroMatt!
Patience pays off!

[jaffles]

On our trip to Kgalagadi in February 2015 we could spot 2 different leopards.

The second one was on 24.02.2015 17:43 at Kamqwa Waterhole, than he crossed the pad and walked to the kalkridge. He moved towards Urikaruus. We can watch him for nearly a half hour. I guess, its Dakotah.





Greetings from Germany
Claudia

[wanderw]

@jaffles
Your second leopard - Spot on jaffles! It was Dakotah at Kamqua. Many thanks for posting.

[Afkpuz]

Good evening all,

i wanted to share my leopard sighting at Urikaruus on 16.1.17 with you.

Around 10pm we heard the first leopard calls coming from the south, coming closer towards Urikaruus with each new one.
Jackals were answering each call and when Dakotah finally arrived at the waterhole around 11pm, they were going mad.
I managed to get some shots of him, drinking and moving below the cabins towards the Wardens tent, before he vanished......

Thanks to Matthew for the confirmation of the ID.

regards,

Denis

https://www.facebook.com/WildlifeAddicts

[wanderw]

@Afkpuz - lovely night shots of Dakotah. He is looking great! Many thanks for posting!

[lion queen]

We had a nice sighting of Dakotah on the evening of 22 April 2017 at urikaruus waterhole

He came walking past the HM chalet where we stayed to the waterhole drank a bit and then moved on behind the chalets.