It has been about two months since a new male, commonly known as the Kashane male leopard, has wondered upon Sabi Sabi Private Game Reserve’s property. His arrival was gladly welcomed by most, all members of staff and mostly the rangers and guests, a chance to see a different large male on the property. However, this was not the case for the dominant territorial male of the area who has an extremely large territory, the Maxabeni male.

Kashane stumbled upon Sabi Sabi’s property as an intruder to the resident male Maxabeni’s territory. For a couple of days he was seen near Little Bush Camp and around the western side of the northern property, making himself at home as if he was settling in to a potential new territory. Meanwhile Maxabeni wasn’t to be seen. Prior to Kashane’s arrival, Maxabeni had moved off the property into the northern parts of his territory.

One morning, one of our guides found Kashane with a nyala bull kill just south of Little Bush Camp. He seemed very content and was very relaxed to allow all to view him creating an amazing atmosphere and excellent sighting for our guests. That same day, Maxabeni was on a Common duiker kill just west of Selati Camp, not too far off from where Kashane was resting alongside his kill. Later that evening, Maxabeni was seen leaving the last few morsels of his kill and made his way straight along the Msuthlu Riverbed towards the western sector. After following Maxabeni, we noticed he was very aware of a foreign scent in his territory and made a direct line straight to where Kashane was.

Kashane was gracefully feeding away on his kill, little did he know Maxabeni was on his scent and eventually ended up stalking him. Suddenly, in a matter of seconds, Maxabeni had become airborne, lunging at the Kashane male where they locked jaws and fought with one another for about ten minutes before Maxabeni chased the intruder off while frantically calling, at this point, the Kashane male had admitted defeat.

The Kashane male was seen once or twice a few days later, still in Maxabeni’s territory, before we lost his presence completely. Recently, we have located Kashane in the northern part of our southern property, Lisbon. Seemingly, he has taken over that area and developing his territory as Mandleve, our previous male in the south, hasn’t been seen in a while. The Kashane male has been scent marking in that territory, patrolling and showing all signs of protecting a territory, thus potentially a male leopard who will be a new resident at Sabi Sabi. Once again, our king up north, Maxabeni, still reins victorious and not giving in to any competition.