Department of Agriculture, ignore the fact that when you kill the apex predators, others simply move in. If you do somehow manage to eliminate all of them, another species will fill the gap and could bring with it even bigger problems. For instance, if you knock off all the leopards in one area, you might get a population explosion of dassies. The apex predators keep everything in balance. So the future must be about livestock management, not predator destruction.’
‘Gets a bit ch-ch-chilly up here when the s-s-sun goes down,’ I spluttered.
‘Are you getting cold?’
‘I-I-I think—’
‘Look, we need to maintain functioning eco-systems.’ Quinton wasn’t interested in my discomfort. ‘The Trust is conducting experiments with sheep farming in the Northern Cape. We’re using trained herders and special dogs. The herders gather all sorts of info on both the livestock and the predators. This way we can make farming more scientific and offer concrete results to the naysayers.’
‘Um, I think I m-m-might need to head back to the ve-ve-ve-hicle before hypothermia sets in.’
‘We want to do more studies on baboon, caracal and jackal. Also klipspringer and dassie, to see how the whole eco-system fits together. And to find ways of alleviating farmer-predator conflict.’
I began swinging my arms around like a windmill, hoping centrifugal force would return some blood to my hands.
At last Quinton was done. He stood up, brushed the sand from his knees and took off his heavy-duty gloves. Apart from the red flag and warning signs, it was impossible to see that the path hid a trap. Quinton loaded the remnants of the equipment into his backpack, handed me the spade and we trudged back down the valley. Ahead of us, the sun’s last rays illuminated Tafelberg. Its highest ramparts glowed in gaudy shades of salmon; the rest of the valley was sunk in shadow.
Quinton dropped me back at the cabin and headed to his home deeper in the mountains at Matjiesrivier. I donned three extra layers and lit a braai fire. The wind was sniping and low clouds poured in from the west over Middelberg. I opened a bottle of workmanlike Shiraz and sat beside the fire staring at the living darkness. There was no moon and the stars hissed quietly in the icy firmament. The stream grumbled loudly, wind whooshed in the bare branches, the mountains pressed closer. Somewhere nearby was my leopard, up there among the crags, perhaps hunting, perhaps taking refuge from the elements beneath an overhang. Maybe she was watching me.
Sitting beside the pyramid of flames, I thought about how the Cape mountain leopard has become a creature of legend and a symbol of what the Cape has lost. Three-and-a-half centuries ago, when Jan van Riebeeck stepped ashore to found his little settlement to grow veggies for scurvy-ridden sailors of the Dutch East India Company, the peninsula had teemed with game. Cape Town itself was home to the Big Five. There were leopards on the crags of Table Mountain, buffalos and rhinos grazing the marshlands of Green Point, lions in Oranjezicht and elephants browsing beside the streams of the CBD, while the grunt of hippos echoed around the city bowl. It was an Eden of almost unimaginable bounty.
Settlers and farmers soon began to clear the land. The hippos of Cape Town’s rivers were among the first to be shot. By the end of the twentieth century, there was not a single member of the Big Five left on the peninsula. The slaughter of large game continued throughout the Western Cape. In most places, only the names remind us of what we have lost: Zeekoevlei, Buffels Bay, renosterveld, Leeukloof, Olifants River. Most prevalent is the name ‘tier’ or ‘tyger’. Early Dutch settlers, unfamiliar with wild African fauna, called the leopards they encountered ‘tigers’. Travelling among the mountains of the Cape, it’s never long before you come across a Tygerberg or Tierkop, a Tierberg or Tierkranskop. Of all the Cape’s free-roaming game, it was these secretive creatures that had the best chance of surviving into the twenty-first century. Their ghostly presence in the mountains fringing the city is a reminder of the rich diversity of wildlife we have lost.
After a meal of wors, chops and potato in a skin of tinfoil, I climbed into a bed piled with blankets. Sleep came quickly … and I found myself stumbling along a track in the mountains. There was no moon to light the way, only a softening of the darkness that marked a sandy path. I grew frightened. The rocky crags breathed danger. Crickets filled the night with threatening stridulations. There was a presence, something watching me. Perhaps the spotted night cat, Prince of Darkness? My path snaked into a narrow kloof beside a stream. Tall reeds leaned in from either side. The ground was soggy underfoot; my legs grew leaden. I passed beneath a gnarled cedar tree and paused. Thick boughs blotted out the stars. Fear gripped me. I could not take another step.
Looking up, I saw a shape draped on a branch above my head. A pair of golden eyes bored into mine. His lips were parted and I could make out the glint of fangs. What beauty, what lethal grace. I was transfixed. Tyger! Tyger! Burning bright, in the mountains of the night. All power and sinew and dark fire, a work of art crafted by some immortal hand. He stared at me for what seemed an age, each second torn from the flesh of time. Then a wide grin spread across his face.
‘Which way should I go from here?’ I asked timidly.
‘That depends on where you want to go,’ said the leopard.
‘So long as I get somewhere,’ I said.
‘An aardvark lives in that direction,’ he pointed a claw to the north. ‘A riverine bunny in that direction.’ He waved vaguely to the east. ‘But, my boy, they are both absolutely impossible to find.’
The leopard closed his eyes and rested a chin on those mighty paws. His body began to dissolve, leaving only his wide, Cheshire grin hanging in the air. I walked on into the night, tingling with excitement.
The rusty hinges of guinea fowl woke me early, followed by a spell of utter silence. I got up and looked out the window. The ground was white with frost. The mountains were colourful cut-outs against a dark-blue sky. A hadeda ibis strutted about, drilling the lawn with its beak. After I had breakfasted on muesli and cold boerewors, Quinton arrived to collect me. We picked up Garth and Lorraine, and headed down the Driehoek Valley in search of Max. Gracie the macaw agreed to stay behind and hold the fort: her biting tongue would certainly scare off most intruders. Except, perhaps, a spotted cat.
Quinton soon picked up a strong signal coming from the male leopard’s collar on Sneeuberg, the 2 027-metre massif to our right. Fortunately, he had a key to a private gate which let us onto a forestry track that wound up the side of a kloof towards the peak. We crossed a stream and ploughed through tall vegetation, its fingers brushing the sides of the 4X4. The track grew steeper and more rocky. On a rise above us stood a line of iconic cedar trees, highly endangered and probably on their way to extinction. Prone to fire and ruthlessly felled for timber in the twentieth century, only a few specimens of this endemic species cling on in the high berg.
A pair of black eagles circled above us like patrolling aircraft, ominous shapes etched against the sky. Like leopards, they are apex predators of the berg, and there’s no love lost between cat and bird as they compete for the same prey. Whenever eagles get the chance, they dive-bomb leopards to scare them away from their territory.
We came to a halt at what looked like a stone igloo beside the track. There was a narrow entrance and a metal sliding door that could be triggered to drop like a guillotine and imprison a creature inside. It was a sinister contraption, casting a pall over the beauty around us.
‘This is an old leopard trap,’ said Quinton. ‘All the farms in the area used to have them. Some are more than a hundred-and-fifty years old. Once the creature was caught, you could shoot it from above through gaps in the stonework. Farmers knew exactly where to place these things. So I’ve put quite a
