Please read this post before making comments using the word "cute" or similar. In actual fact, at the time the image was taken, Asa was showing his teeth. He wasn't amused. We'd had a long training session in his den, he'd been happy and active, very active. When it came time for his brief public viewing at the end of the day he braced himself and his mood changed. He was wary, he bit, he was a leopard...
As much as he can turn on to have a chocolate box expression it must always be remembered Asa is an apex predator. Leopards are ruthless killers. They are superbly cunning. Once focused upon, there is little chance for their prey, animal or human. The sheer strength, agility and intelligence of these animals is astonishing.
Another child was killed by a leopard in the Baitadi region of western Nepal on Wednesday. That's about twenty five people now in under two years in that area alone. Day or night, people and livestock are not safe. Forget sirens, lights, patrols, everything has been tried. A crack team from Chitwan could not track the leopard(s) and now there is a shoot to kill order for police and army squads.
Here in the Kaski I'm visiting an area in two days where leopards are on the prowl. People are scared. Dogs are taken every night. I had a long discussion with Prabhat of the Forestry Office about the formation of a Response Team in this region. It has to happen. I'm also visiting the Baitadi region next month. I'll try and visit as many of the victim's families as possible. We have to learn everything we can.
There's never going to be complete harmony, life doesn't work like that. Living with big cats means living with risk. The aim is balance, fairness to both sides of the conflict.
This is what Asa is really all about. At the moment I'm training him to stay wild so we can learn. Rewilding, relocation, just better understanding for the sake of future leopards are what can be achieved to keep with the aim of balance, that's the goal.
Today he growled at me with a volume that surprised us both. It was primal. We are friends, in a way family but it is relationship that is not cuddly, it's raw and often rough. He'll sometimes eat his food right up against me, we have that measure of trust, he knows I'm on his side, for now.
In the wild, leopards eventually go their separate ways. My relationship with Asa will never cease but it will change. For the sake of the knowledge we must get Asa must be allowed to keep, learn as many of a leopard's wild instincts as possible. That's what his mother would have taught him. We must do it a different way but we must do it...
