MANAGERS REPORT

Dear Friends and Colleagues

The Lodge

Well here we are in November already, and our last Report before Christmas, hard to believe where this year has gone, it only seems like yesterday we were writing last years Christmas Report. In reflection, looking back at the year that was, it has been an incredibly memorable one and too many highlights to name in just one Report, but to name a few, 2007 has seen:

• Some of the highest occupancies we have achieved since we opened in 1998.

• Probably the best game viewing we have seen in the last ten years and it continues to get better.

• We have seen out Team expand and have had the great fortune to welcome Jessie and Shane to Head up our Kitchen side of the operation, Carmen joined us in Reception and Gary on the Ranging side. Teenage, Michael and Lucas joined us in the bar, Amos in the kitchen and Ronnie in the gardening department. Last but not least, Luckson joined us in the maintenance department and has already achieved the accolade of employee of the month for October, as did Ronnie in September, great to have you all on the Team with us.

• There have been a number of worthy promotions at the Lodge in 2007 and I congratulate you all on the success you have achieved. Vanessa was promoted to Assistant General Manager, Marius took over as Head Ranger and Head of the Safari Department, Ronald was promoted to Tracker and Maretha to Front of House Manager. Raymond accomplished passing all of his exams and is now a fully fledged member of the Ranging Team, a great accomplishment indeed. As we head towards 2008 and a particularly noteworthy one for us all at Leopard Hills, as it is going to be Leopard Hill’s 10th Anniversary, and for Louise and I and many of our Team here at the Lodge, it has been a privilege to have been here since we first opened our doors all those years ago.

We are in the process of a mini re-vamp of the rooms, and the ones we have completed look stunning with the floors re-done, new paint work and still to come, linen curtains, new reed work in the bathrooms and refurbished outside decks, finish off the new stunning look.

Employee of the Month

As has become customary since we initiated it three months ago, it gives us great pleasure to announce Richard Dhlamini as our Employee of the Month for November. Many of you who have visited us at Leopard Hills will have become accustomed to Richards smiling face as he performs his duties in the waiter/barmen department. Well done Richard, very well deserved and your enthusiasm is infectious.

Community Development

I must begin by saying a very special thank you to Michelle and Simon Orange and friends for your unbelievable commitment to the Crèche/Day Care Centre. All the building supplies have been ordered and as soon as they arrive we will begin the construction. The builder has estimated on three weeks for completion of the project, but given the Christmas period ahead, we may expect some delays, but we are still banking on completion and having the facility up and running by the beginning of school in early January.

I would also like to make mention of Ken and Ally Verdon, who against the odds and political red tape, managed to get twenty one computers sent over from Australia, which are now sitting in the Wellani Primary School Computer room and ready for use. Not only an amazing gesture, but an incredible effort all round, thank you from us all.

Rangers Report

This months Report has been complied by Marius, as usual, and I think really brings out his writing talents and use of the English language, I believe even Wilber Smith would be proud. Thank you to Marius for all the pictures taken for the Report.

Until the next Report at the end of December, may we take this opportunity from all the Leopard Hills Team to wish everyone and safe, prosperous and healthy Christmas period ahead.

We would like to thank Marius for all the pictures in this Report.

Duncan and Louise Rodgers
Operations Director and General Manager

Rangers Report

November was a month of welcoming back so many individual animals that we haven’t seen in months and even years. The oldest and biggest male lion of the Mapogo male lion coalition was found early one morning close to our camp. The magnificent male hasn’t been seen in our area for almost 9 months and for ranger Gary this was a real treat as he heard so many stories of the legendary “Big Mapogo”, and for the first time since he started working at Leopard Hills he got to see this male lion in his absolute prime.

For the first time in more than 2 years were we fortunate enough to see a female cheetah and cub on our traversing area. This was by far the one of the biggest highlights of the month and even of the year.

Cheetah

As mentioned in the introduction of my report we had three fantastic sightings of a female cheetah and an approximately 8 month old cub in the south of our traversing area. The first sighting of these endangered cats were on a cold overcast afternoon where we found them feeding of a female reedbuck kill. At the time of writing this report the female and cub have been seen moving deeper and deeper into our traversing area. We are holding thumbs to see many more sightings of these phenomenal animals. We also had a single sighting of the territorial male cheetah at the beginning of the month.

Lion

With the return of the oldest Mapogo male lion we once again had an opportunity to witness the 6 male lions all together. The six male lions were found on one of our morning drives lying underneath an acacia tree.

The Sand River pride had another month of misfortune. In the middle of the month the pride killed a wildebeest close to camp when during the night they got attacked by a clan of hyena. Nobody saw the attack or knew how many hyenas were there but one of the females with the 3 younger cubs got bitten on her leg and ripped through her tendon. Three weeks later she still can’t step on her foot and we are watching her recovery and progress with great interest and concern.

The Ximungwe Pride of 5 lions and a new male lion had a fantastic month. They managed to kill plenty wildebeest and in the end of the month had an early Christmas bonus when they came across a dead buffalo bull.

The lions couldn’t believe their luck and it was phenomenal to watch them as the whole pride played around the carcass with full bellies and hundreds of kilograms of buffalo meat. On the third night of the feast the whole pride was lying close by when suddenly Gary and his guest heard the spine chilling contact calls of several hyenas interrupting the quite summer evening. In no time 13 hyenas pulled in and after a heated battle the hyenas took over.

And then something happened that we have been waiting to see for so long, the new male lion that was with the pride rushed in went to battle, and took 13 hyenas off his kill. After all the blood shed, he took claim of the carcass and dragged it away in true male lion style.

Leopard

Makwela’s female leopard cub is nearing her independence and it is just weeks before Makwela, her mother, will turn her back on the young female leopard, and their close bond between mother and daughter that they shared for so long will be broken. The young female had a fantastic month and managed to successfully catch and kill a young bushbuck and an impala lamb.

There are impala lambs all around and all the leopards that we viewed this month took full advantage in this time of plenty. My guests and I had a fantastic sighting of Makubela female leopard, she killed an impala lamb and after stashing the kill safely in the fork of a Marula tree climbed down and paraded around like a real queen. She was constantly calling and with no other female leopard in sight we think that she might be in oestrus trying to locate a male leopard to mate with her.

At the beginning of the month we had a real treat when we found a young male leopard in the east of our traversing area feeding of a wildebeest kill. We are not sure if this young male leopard, that is in top notch condition, managed to kill the full grown wildebeest cow by himself. We also were fortunate to have several sightings of Shangwa’s full grown female youngsters Ntshile and Shikavi.

Buffalo

There are buffalo all round us, and with 2 huge herds merging together, we were fortunate enough to have seen a massive herd of more than 600 buffalos together on several occasions this month. The herd were moving steadily north and at the end of the month reached our property where they were grazing on the many open savannas around our camp.

Rhino

In the month of November we once again had some of the most awesome sightings of rhino at Leopard Hills. Many groups of female and calves all joined together and seeing groups of up to 7 rhinos was the norm.

Elephant

A month of ups and downs with elephant viewing and we experienced days with hundreds of elephants and some days with very little. On a morning safari my guests and I watched more than a hundred elephants spread out all along the length of the Sand River. We were high up on one of the banks and had an awesome time viewing and photographing elephants for more than an hour as the elephants behaved naturally without being aware of our presence.

Specials

The highlight of the month on the smaller creatures was without a doubt seeing a massive python with an impala lamb kill. We also had a sighting of honey badgers and a single sighting of a serval cat. Most of the migratory birds have arrived and the bush is full of phenomenal bird calls from the woodland kingfishers and the various species of cuckoos.

Kind Regards
Marius, Hannes, Gary and Raymond

Sightings totals for the Month

Lion:43 Leopard:42 Buffalo:25 Rhino:58 Elephant:40 Cheetah:3 Serval:1 Honey Badger:1 Python:2

Note: The above sightings totals reflect the number of individual sightings of animals, not populations of animals in the area. e.g. If we see a herd of 12 buffalo this is noted as one sighting. These sightings are then tallied to get the figure reflected above.