Ngorongoro Leopard
In August 2000, I was on Safari in Tanzania, at the lip of the Ngorongoro volcano crater. The crater is about 10 miles across and has some 30,000 large mammals in it. This has got to be a main highlight of any Safari on the northern circuit in Tanzania. After a short map orientation at the park visitors’ center, we drove on up to a scenic overlook. Although usually foggy, from here you can see all the way across the crater. Three million years ago, this was the largest mountain in Africa – then it blew its top.
Normally the guides keep you in you vehicle any time you are outside of camp. While you are in the vehicle, the predators leave you alone. They see the vehicle as one really big, strange animal, but if you leave the vehicle, you are just another part of the food chain. So, it was unusual when the guide let us out at the overlook. You do really have to get out to see the crater, and this is the point where everyone exits the vehicle to get a gander of the park.
I was videotaping the crater – panning from one side to the other – when the guide said: “Everyone back in the Land Rover.” I turned around, and there was a leopard walking down the crater lip road towards us, its tail up and swishing back and forth.
My instant reaction as a photographer was not to get back in the vehicle, but to tape a little of the leopard slipping up from behind. I have enclosed the photo.
