A black panther has been photographed in the African wilderness by a human for the first time in more than 100 years, with the stunning images showing the cat's piercing eyes in the darkness of night.
Photographer Don Heyneke spent over 240 hours in the Kenyan bush seeking out the rare animal. Black panthers—or melanistic leopards—have a condition that causes their body to produce an excess of black pigment, making their fur darker. According to
Sightings of melanistic leopards are incredibly rare. They hunt at night and so, with their dark coats, are almost impossible to spot. The only photographs we have of them tend to be taken with camera traps.
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Heyneke, who is also a private wilderness guide and co-founder of Escape Safaris Co, had been tracking the black panther with the help of local Samburu people. They were based at the Laikipia Wilderness Camp, central Kenya, and searching an area spanning around 20, 000 acres.
When we got our first glimpse of the black female it was unbelievable, I just sat there and I didn't even think about picking up my camera, Heyneke told Magnus News Agency.
Heyneke spent hours letting the leopard get used to his presence. The female is thought to be between 14 and 16 months old.
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I just stared with my binoculars watching her and it was just the most ridiculously amazing thing. She is all black so she looks silhouetted as it gets dark, but she turned towards us and looked at us and all you could see were those piercing eyes.
As soon as I saw her staring back at me, I thought that's the most incredibly beautiful thing I've ever seen and something that I never ever thought I would see. We probably had only 15 to 20 seconds, but it felt like two minutes and then she and her mother slinked off and moved into some thick bush and we lost them.
The black panther is estimated to be between 14 and 16 months old. She is still reliant on her mother—who is not a melanistic leopard—but is becoming more independent and has been observed hunting and killing her own food.
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Heneke said he was able to take his first photograph of the young female a few days after the initial sighting. He added that when he started looking for the elusive creature, he thought he would be lucky to get a shot from a few hundred yards away. [To capture it in portrait] was something that I never thought would be possible, he said.
The Laikipia Wilderness Camp, where the black panther lives, is beginning to become a tourist destination and the wildlife there are increasingly wary of humans.
With all the animals being a bit more on edge, we knew that our task with the leopard would be that bit more difficult, Heyneke said. We knew that if we got in a position to photograph or view the leopard it was always going to be at a distance to begin with.
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He and the team gained the leopard's trust by watching her from afar, allowing her to get comfortable with their presence. Slowly, over a number of sightings, they edged closer to gauge her reaction.
You have to treat the animal with a lot of care, said Heyneke. Once it doesn't want to be seen, any leopard is going to disappear in a flash and you won't be able to find it. It was just being very gentle and mindful of leopards and their behavior.
By the last sighting, she was really becoming more comfortable and there was a mutual respect so that she knew we were not there to harm her. And then we had this window into this animal's life that was extraordinary. We were able to spend an hour or two with this rare leopard watching what it does in the natural world.
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Work is underway in the Laikipia region to establish a wider conservation area and promote sustainable tourism. There are now anti-poaching and ranger patrols in the area. Heyneke said he hoped the black panther would stay around Laikipia when she leaves her mother, rather than moving to a new territory.
What I really love about our story is that we went through everything traditionally, he said. We studied the mother and cub's movements through camera traps, we tracked them, we started to understand where they were moving and at what times, this helped us plot and plan the best opportunity of being at the right place at the right time.
You need a lot of educated decision making but luck is still probably about 90 percent of your success … It was tough, I must say, and definitely the hardest safari I have ever had.
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The man behind the camera, Shaaz Jung, spent 12 hours a day for five long years tracking Saya, a melanistic leopard who found his way into the Kabini forest.
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After a Twitter account, Earth, shared Jung's images, hundreds of thousands of people across the globe liked and retweeted the stunning photos.
For the last few years, Jung has spent seven days a week in the forest, arriving at 6 am, and staying until darkness fell at 6.30 pm. I would consider myself very lucky if I saw him twice a week, and a lot of times, it would be just fleeting glimpses, he said.
Black panthers usually inhabit evergreen forests, where the thick canopy of trees doesn't let the sun into the undergrowth - but Saya is found in the deciduous forest of Kabini.
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When people see these pictures, they think there are several leopards, but actually there's just one black panther where we are — one melanistic leopard in the dense forest of Nagarhole, explained Jung, who also owns a wildlife safari lodge in Nagarhole National Park.
For two-three years straight, Jung went into the jungle at 6am, staying there until 6.30pm, seven days in a week. Shaaz Jung
Jung comes from a family of wildlife enthusiasts. As an economics graduate, he was headed for a career in the corporate world, until he came to the forest when he was 20, with his parents who are wildlife conservationists.
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He is the ambassador for Nikon India and recently worked as the director of photography for a National Geographic film on the rare black panther.
The forest is one of the few places in the world that's home to not just leopards and the black panther, but tigers, elephants, bears, and more.
The result is the first portfolio of a melanistic leopard where we have him hunting, courting, fighting ... everything, said Jung. My aim was to go deeper and understand how he's surviving in a forest where he doesn't belong.'Right on the bank of the river there is a station Ob, a big trading city with magnificent cathedral, great schools and shops— very American-like.'
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The team got in touch with the cub’s current owner who is known to be an expert in rehabilitating wild cats. She agreed to take the cub, and spent weeks nursing the little panther to safety.
The cub was christened Luna when it was evident that she was successfully through the most dangerous period; the owner started social media pages to tell the rescue story, and to share the cub’s progress.
Her current owner, a young married woman from Siberia prefers not to share her name and not to declare the exact location because of safety concerns.
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‘Venza in fact thought that Luna was her cub. As soon as the dog saw the panther she started licking her fur, they bonded instantly’, the owner said.
They have to play in remote areas outside the city, and soon a summer enclosure will be built for Luna outside the house.
‘I have friends among owners of private - very good ones! - zoos, they are ready to take Luna any minute. But right now I’d like to try and find the way to keep her with us, and to create conditions that she is happy.
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