SHAUN SMILLIE
NIGHT after night, something would sneak onto Johan Bosch’s Eikenhof farm and eat his geese.
In the morning there would be a pile of feathers, and another discussion over who the culprit might be.
Was it perhaps a hungry vagrant who had found a way onto the farm? A caracal with a taste for fowl, or a sly jackal?
Meanwhile, the flock dwindled from 200 birds. The mystery killer whittled them down to just a couple of dozen.
Then Bosch caught sight of the spoor of the beast, and couldn’t believe what he saw.
It was enough to get him to set up a cage trap and bait it with a piece of meat. For a while the cage stood empty. Then one night the trap was sprung.
“We were just flabbergasted,” said Bosch.
In the cage, on a farm 15km from the centre of Joburg, was an angry young leopard. Bosch was right, the spoor he had seen was that of a leopard.
That was just more than six months ago.
The leopard was released in a game reserve, and it appeared that once again Bosch’s geese were safe. Or so he thought.
A little over two months ago, Bosch sighted a large leopard on the wall of his dam, metres from where his geese sleep for the night. This was a different leopard, Bosch believes.
This time Bosch is building up his fences, hoping to keep the cat out.
And while most residents in the area shake their heads and doubt that a leopard is on the prowl within sight of the Joburg skyline, there have been other possible sightings.
Bosch said a policeman had told him how he had flushed a leopard early one morning at a shooting range in the area.
And Nicci Wright, of the animal rescue organisation FreeMe, has had two calls in the past month related to leopard sightings to the south of Joburg.
“The first call came from the police on a Sunday morning, saying they had seen a leopard near Vereeniging,” Wright said. The leopard wasn’t seen again.
A week later, Wright received another call.
“A guy said he had spotted a leopard walking along the Old Vereeniging Road,” said Wright. “He was concerned for the safety of the children walking to school along the road.”
There had been no other sightings.
“It might be that it wasn’t a leopard after all. There is a possibility that it might have been another species of cat like a caracal or serval,” said Wright.