A mother leopard’s lessons

The safari zone of Bhadra Tiger Reserve’s Lakkavalli range was unusually silent on a May morning in 2025. No langur sounded an alarm. No spotted deer barked a warning. As our jeep returned from what seemed like another dry safari, movement flickered at the edge of a drying waterbody. A female leopard (Panthera pardus) suddenly emerged from the bushes and onto the mud road.

Her behaviour was uncharacteristic. Leopards are masters of camouflage, vanishing into foliage within seconds of being sighted. This one, however, stood her ground, repeatedly glancing back into the undergrowth. Within minutes, three tiny cubs tumbled out of the cover.

We were about 200 metres away. Among the cubs was a melanistic individual, popularly known as a black panther. It is a rare colour variant caused by a recessive gene that results in an overproduction of the dark pigment. The mother gently picked up each cub by the scruff and moved them, one by one, to a safer hide. For nearly 25 minutes, we watched in silence. No one in the jeep with six people complained of delay.

The cubs, barely three to four months old, hissed softly, bared their tiny teeth, before attempting the oldest trick in the wild — hiding in plain sight. Their fragile bravado made the encounter unforgettable.

For the next three weeks, almost every safari vehicle entering Lakkavalli spent time near the same waterbody. More often than not, the leopard family was there. As days passed, the triplets — two males and one female — grew increasingly confident, particularly the black cub, nicknamed ‘Blacky’ by guides and drivers. The cubs were frequently seen playing, mock-fighting and sharpening their early hunting instincts.

Bhadra in summer is a land of contrasts — open, sunlit patches merging abruptly into dense bamboo thickets. The teak (Tectona grandis), kindal (Terminalia paniculata), and mixed plantations form an uneasy boundary between the wild forest and managed land. Visibility changes with every step. It is in these transitional spaces — where exposure and concealment coexist — that the leopard mother chose to raise her cubs.

Before the monsoon set in, the family gravitated towards the backwaters of the Bhadra Reservoir as water sources within the forest became scarce. The receding water of the reservoir exposed the rocky shelves, mudflats and narrow forest corridors — landscapes neither fully aquatic nor terrestrial. These shifting margins became the stage for a remarkable natural drama.

Over more than a year of regular morning and evening safaris, I, being a naturalist at the reserve, watched the mother raise her cubs in this changing landscape.

The natural drama

The cubs spent their early weeks playing among fallen branches, dry leaves and exposed stones left behind by the retreating waters. They chased one another across uneven ground, slipping and recovering, learning balance and coordination. Gradually, play sharpened into skill. The black cub instinctively chose darker spaces — under dense canopy or between bamboo clumps — where shade offered both concealment and confidence.

Survival lessons in the wild were being taught silently. I often observed the mother move slowly through teak and bamboo stands, and freeze without warning. Instantly, the cubs mirrored her, flattening themselves against rocks or tree roots. This was their first lesson in invisibility.

The forest, too, was their tutor. When langurs sounded alarm calls or spotted deer barked from plantation edges, the cubs dropped low, pressing themselves into the earth. Long before encountering danger directly, they learned to interpret the forest’s warning system — a language shared across species.

Bhadra is a challenging terrain for a leopard family as the landscape is dominated by tigers. Tigers, being topmost predators, pose a constant threat to the family. In addition to tigers, packs of wild dogs and dominant male leopards also present serious dangers to the family.

However, the mother responded with constant vigilance. She shifted her cubs frequently, selecting shelters with care — dense bamboo, rocky crevices, steep slopes and thick undergrowth inaccessible to larger predators.

Two of the siblings longue on a tree branch.

Training in hunting

Hunting lessons began modestly. Along forest edges and near plantation boundaries, the cubs stalked insects, birds and squirrels. Most attempts failed, but each sharpened their patience, focus and balance. After successful hunts, the mother dragged the kill into dense cover or hoisted it onto a tree branch, a necessary strategy in Bhadra, where wild dogs or tigers can make away with the kill within minutes.

As the monsoon retrieved, the cubs grew muscular and more assured. In seven to eight months, the cubs neared maturity and the mother’s behaviour shifted. She grew less responsive to their calls, often walking ahead without looking back. Gradually, she withdrew from her core territory. Leopards are solitary by nature and separation is not abandonment but preparation.

Now nearly 14 months old, the cubs stand on the threshold of independence. That a female leopard has successfully raised all her cubs to this stage in the hostile terrain of a tiger reserve speaks to remarkable resilience, where concealment, caution and instinct are the very tools of survival.

(The author is a naturalist)