In this incredibly captivating sighting, a brazen leopard takes on an unrelenting honey badger. The honey badger tries escaping the leopard’s grip. Will the honey badger survive?
27-year-old Matthew Leigh who is currently doing his PhD in particle physics at CERN in Switzerland and his fiancé 27-year-old graphic designer Thejal Mathura witnessed the events play out while on safari near Biyamiti in Kruger National Park. They share their story with LatestSightings.com:
“The day started with me asking Thejal to marry me, she said yes! The two of us had gone out to enjoy a drive, watch the sunset and have a drink to celebrate my proposal and our engagement. We were rushing back to Biyamiti camp before closing time. We were about 500m from the gate and it was about 5:50 pm. It was the last last last chance to see something exciting before the end of the day.”
A celebratory engagement drive led the couple to witness a honey badger trying to escape a leopard’s grip!
“We had no idea just how exciting our last 10 minutes in the park were going to get! As we were driving, we saw a leopard wrestling a honey badger on the ground. We were in utter shock and couldn’t believe that we were seeing something so rare right next to our car! We kept looking at each other and mouthing ‘Oh my G*d’.”
“One thing that the video can’t get across is the smell. It was right by the car so it was an overpowering mixture of blood and honey badger’s backside defence secretions. It was quite nauseating.”
“In the end, we think the leopard was uncomfortable with us being so close and picked up the badger and moved off about 10m into the bush. We could still hear everything and the honey badgers’ cries were getting slower, quieter, and more labored. Eventually, we had to go to make it back to the camp.”
“This was an incredibly rare sighting and it’s something my fiancé and I will be telling our children.”
There was a leopard tinged by Foxy Crocodile Bush Retreat & Safaris near Biyamiti with a missing ear. It was most probably lost in a territorial battle with another leopard. Although it is difficult to say for sure this could be the same brazen leopard that took on the honey badger!