I've spent much of my working life
trying to film big cats.
I've watched them in the wild
and analyzed the footage in the editing room,
which has given me a real insight into their behavior.
Today, we can see these amazing predators
on our screens any time we choose.
(dramatic music)
But until quite recently,
we knew practically nothing about them.
Big cats are normally shy and very secretive.
Today, their populations are shrinking fast.
But now we have the means to view them
in more detail than ever.
And learn the intricacies of their lives.
Which is just as well,
because we need to find ways of living alongside them
before they disappear forever.
(birds calling)
Like most big cats, the leopard is a master of secrecy.
It's one of the hardest of all big cats to see,
let alone observe.
And this is mainly because leopards
need absolute invisibility to hunt.
But also because leopards are vulnerable on the ground.
They always need to look over their shoulder.
Leopards only ever feel truly safe ...
(roaring)
in a tree.
In India's Gir forest, a resurgent lion population
is keeping leopards in a state of fear.
Once, there were so few lions
that the leopards here became top predator.
But now the lions are running riot
and putting the leopard back in its place.
(lion roaring)
For millions of years,
this is what leopards have had to content with.
This is why they're such good climbers
and why they evolved to be so incredibly secretive.
For me, filming leopards has always been a challenge.
(roaring)
The whole point of these cats is that you can't see them.
They only reveal themselves to us
when they judge it really doesn't matter.
(soft music)
It could be argued that the leopard
is the most successful of all the big cats.
It certainly is the most numerous
and still the most widespread.
During the Ice Age, it had a very wide distribution,
covering Africa, Europe, and much of Asia.
Since then, its population has shrunk dramatically.
Yet it's still the big cat found
in more different countries than any other.
Leopards can live in almost any habitat.
But it's the big cat which is most at home in forests.
Even where leopards are common,
they can be very hard to spot,
which is perhaps one reason why,
when you do finally get a clear view,
the sight of a young leopard in perfect condition
is one of the most beautiful things
a human can set eyes upon.
Leopards are often confused with jaguars,
but they're very different cats.
The leopard is lighter, with long legs
and lots of power in the rear.
It has a much longer tail it uses for balance and agility.
They're very graceful animals, but they still possess
the literally superhuman strength of all the cats,
derived from their special, fast twitch muscle.
This young female is probably still under 40 kilos
in weight, while her mother, patiently waiting for her,
is probably no more than 60 kilos.
(growling)
The cub finally spots her mother.
When the mother looks me in the eye
as if to say she has me covered
should I make a false move,
actually I feel honored with the trust she shows,
trust without which we'd see nothing.
We'd never get this close without them knowing.
The mother is in the process of helping her daughter
learn how to fend for herself.
The daughter is seeking reassurance
that their old life can continue,
and they'll soon be going hunting together.
But first things first.
A drink.
In the dry season, animal hoof prints
are often the only source of water available.
(growling)
Life lesson number one for the cub:
how to drink from a muddy hoof print
without getting stung by a bee.
(growling)
These are lucky leopards.
They have prey and space.
If there's anywhere in the world
that this young female has a good chance,
it's in Sri Lanka's Yala National Park.
Lions and tigers became extinct here over 10,000 years ago,
and so you'd think that these two
don't have much to worry about.
But as we'll see, being the top predator
isn't all it's cracked up to be.
Places like this, where leopards
have lost their fear of humans,
give us an incredible opportunity to explore their lives.
But in the case of leopards, that means being ready
to spend a whole night with them,
as the hours of darkness are when they're most active.
If there's enough moonlight,
we can use super sensitive starlight cameras.
Or we can add infrared light,
invisible to cats and to humans.
When things get really tricky,
we can also film with a thermal camera.
It detects the heat from their bodies.
As light levels fall, many of the prey animals
gather in herds in open areas.
Wild boar join gatherings of spotted deer.
Before long, the boar find a place to sleep on their own,
forming a defensive circle.
Everybody faces outwards.
They're clearly expecting trouble.
The daughter, of course, is filled with excitement
at the chance to hunt on her own,
stalking and chasing anything that moves.
But this wild boar isn't sleeping.
As a male, he's three or four times heavier
than the young leopard,
and he doesn't seem in the least bit worried.
The young leopard can just see him in the darkness
and is well aware he is completely out of her league.
It's so dark, the boar hasn't noticed the leopard yet.
Only at this point does he realize he's being watched,
and so does what wild boar always do with leopards.
(grunting)
Send them into the trees.
Being in a tree is a natural state for a leopard,
especially this young female,
as she tries to make sense of the world.
(deer chirping)
The sound in the distance is the alarm call of spotted deer,
which can only mean one thing.
There's another leopard wandering around.
In Yala, leopards are hard to see in daylight.
But at night, with special equipment,
we find them almost anywhere.
(rustling)
(leopard calling)
Like all true big cats, leopards can roar.
The fact that this male is calling
shows he's not at all interested in hunting deer.
The call is meant for other leopards.
And the young female will recognize the owner.
Even if it's her father, she's better off in the tree.
He's just patrolling his territory, and deer mob him.
As long as their behind him, they move towards him,
so that everybody knows there's a leopard about.
Their calls can be heard almost a kilometer away,
so all the other leopards nearby
know exactly where this male is.
But while leopards may recognize his ownership,
other animals don't.
(deer chirping)
In Yala, water buffalo are a particular problem.
(snorting)
And they're another reason why trees
are a leopard's best friend,
the perfect place to hide, watch,
and wait for a good time to reemerge.
Leopard food lives mostly on the ground.
In Africa, small and medium antelope
are the favorite prey of leopards.
In Asia, the antelope are mostly replaced by deer.
The daughter goes to find her mother again.
She needs some guidance.
All this time, the mother has barely moved.
(leopard vocalizing)
The daughter makes the most of her mother's affection
while she still can.
Now, finally, the mother takes her daughter hunting.
(rustling)
With the half moon rising,
we can switch to super starlight camera.
It's just bright enough to see a herd of sambar
edging towards the leopards.
The daughter shows her excitement,
while her mother stays back and lets her get on with it.
But sambar are huge, averaging over 300 kilos or so,
and are way beyond the skills of this young leopard.
(sambar calling)
Their calls let the leopard know they've seen her,
and now they move in closer to get a better view,
almost as if to mock her.
(anxious percussion)
Interestingly, we found that, when the moon is up,
it was always much harder to find leopards,
even though there was more light.
And there was often nothing interesting going on.
It could be that moonlight is enough
for most animals to be able to see perfectly well,
so they often revert to their daytime patterns of behavior.
The mother leopard knows this, which is why
she doesn't bother to go and help her daughter.
Without a moon, leopards were always easy to find,
often sleeping on the road,
perhaps because it's just too dark
to navigate a snake- and thorn-filled forest safely.
Light levels strongly influence animal behavior.
At night, like us, monkeys sleep,
but in the daytime, they're nervous of leopard attack
and spend their time with spotted deer.
The two species work together.
The deer are happy to have the monkeys' extra vigilance
and are more relaxed.
Which is why most leopards here will be asleep in a tree,
catching the breeze in the 40 degree heat.
But there are many other good reasons
why a leopard wouldn't bother to hunt when the sun is up.
This deer was killed in the morning.
If there was a leopard anywhere near,
it's already been chased away by the buffalo.
Since there are no vultures in Yala,
there's a good chance that the leopard
will be able to come and feed once darkness has fallen.
The monkeys in the tree and the jungle crow
indicate that the carcass does have an owner.
(cawing)
This is the daughter leopard.
The mother is nowhere to be seen.
(grunting)
The buffalo have moved on,
but now a large herd of wild boar appear.
(grunting)
And they discover the deer carcass.
The main scavenger in Yala turns out to be wild board.
(grunting and squealing)
While they appear to be like a pack of wolves of hyenas,
they don't actually have the teeth to be real carnivores.
Unlike the cats, dogs and hyenas,
wild boar have no carnassials, the special teeth
that enable predators to actually cut skin.
So while the boar can easily remove the soft parts,
there will always be something left for a leopard.
(squealing)
The boar are making the daughter nervous.
She picks a safe moment to find her mother.
Elsewhere, another leopard has braved the daylight
to finish an old sambar deer,
one that's already been ravaged by the boar
and has little meat left.
The leopard's special meat-eating teeth
allow it to find food that the pigs can't eat.
The carnassials come into play.
Wild boar are ever present here now.
(grunting)
The fact that there are no tigers in Yala
is, on the one hand, great news for the leopards,
but on the other, if there were tigers,
there would be fewer wild boar.
(grunting)
It's only at night that leopards can gain
any kind of advantage over the boar.
There's still one there,
trying to suck the last goodness from the sambar carcass.
His teeth have no purchasing power on the tough skin.
But in the dark, the ability to move silently ...
gives the leopard a big advantage.
(dramatic music)
(roaring) (squealing)
And now she can feed in peace.
Leopards have survived for millions of years
by adapting to an ever-changing world,
watching, waiting for the coast to be clear.
Often, they've lived in very low densities,
but they've always been able to find each other.
(leopard vocalizing)
This strange sound isn't one of pain.
It's an invitation to a male leopard from a female.
She leaves a tantalizing scent trail.
And the male has to track her down.
When he finds her, there's no surprise.
She already knows it's him,
as she's fathered a cub with her.
Her invitation was to him specifically.
As the sky brightens, we have the chance
to film this lovers' tryst by moonlight for the first time.
Cat sex is more or less the same with most species:
it's the female who initiates.
Her caresses are tender.
But mating can be a violent affair.
All male cats have a barbed penis to stimulate ovulation,
and withdrawal can be quite painful for her,
so the male bites the female's neck
to protect itself from attack.
(screeching)
(roaring)
When the female is in season,
they may mate as many as 250 times in a couple of days.
(screeching)
As often as every 15 minutes
to maximize reproductive success.
(roaring)
The Sri Lankan leopards are mong the largest in the world,
and the males are huge compare to the females,
often exceeding 100 kilos,
almost the same size as the lions.
(elephant calling)
But it doesn't mean they're kings and queens of the jungle.
Here, leopards can't even mate in peace.
After millions of years of being hunted by large predators,
elephants won't tolerate leopards nearby.
(elephants vocalizing)
Being shunned and chased by wildlife wherever they go
hasn't stopped leopards here in Yala's national park
from doing incredibly well.
In fact, this is one of the densest
leopard populations in the world.
But one of the key reasons
for their success is rather surprising.
Humans have provided a helping hand.
There are few natural lakes or ponds in Sri Lanka,
and for centuries wildlife has depended
on manmade water sources.
Leopards are generally so antisocial,
they each want their own place to drink.
Only a mother and cub can share.
The limit to the leopard population in Yala
wasn't the availability of prey; it was water sources.
So, in Yala, more artificial water sources were built
in the hope they could increase the number of leopards.
The experiment has been a huge success.
Leopards are really thriving.
Throughout their range, leopards have been living
alongside humans for nearly two million years.
And now their relationship has become even closer.
Leopards know how to keep a very low profile,
and if they can find food of some kind,
they can easily survive among people.
(intriguing music)
Sometimes communities are completely unaware
of a leopard in their midst.
(dogs barking)
Only the village dogs know,
and that's because they're the ones at greatest risk.
But there is a place in India where these 21st century cats
have taken living among us to a whole new level.
Mumbai.
(horns honking)
The most populous urban area on the subcontinent,
with over 20 million human inhabitants.
And incredibly, leopards live here too.
(fireworks rumbling)
Within this huge metropolis
lies Sanjay-Gandhi National Park.
A protected area like this of around 100 square kilometers
would normally be expected to support only a few leopards.
But here there are over 40.
At the edges of the city,
the leopards' old foe has been domesticated,
although they've also interbred with wild boar.
When most residents are asleep,
leopards make their way out of the park, into the city.
Carefully, and quietly.
Cubs learn the route from an early age.
This is their urban jungle.
The leopards don't have to go far
to find what they're after.
An abundance of food.
These cats are known to feed
on about 100 different prey species,
so if it moves, it's probably on the list.
The ability to eat whatever they can catch
is one reason why they're so successful.
(grunting)
But she could no more kill this big sow here
than she could in a forest of Sri Lanka.
The thick neck of pigs makes it very difficult
for leopards to kill by strangulation.
Of course, it's the adult pigs she's after.
It's the piglets.
(dramatic music)
She approaches the shed where they all live.
The plan is to make a hit and run.
But if she's discovered, she'll have to flee.
She needs to be completely silent.
In the darkness, she hears the approach of an adult
and makes a silent escape.
Pigs here too take a very dim view
of leopards sneaking around.
But actually, piglets from the periphery of the city
only form a small part of the leopard diet here in Mumbai.
Dogs are their main city staple.
In fact, leopards are well known
for taking foxes and jackals in wilderness areas,
so the domestic dogs here
are a perfectly natural prey for leopards.
(dogs barking)
Most dogs live in the denser parts of the city.
And it's here that the leopard's extraordinary skills
are tested to the limit.
They're so good at staying out of sight
that few people ever witness this night hunter's activities.
(dramatic music)
(dog barking)
Over surveillance cameras can reveal the truth.
(dog barking)
There are 95,000 dogs in Mumbai,
and the leopards know where they live.
The element of surprise is essential.
(snarling)
The leopard silences its victim with a throat bite
before it can make a sound.
With such a high density of people,
human encounters with leopards are inevitable.
Only a very small proportion of these
result in injuries to leopards or people.
This pregnant female was filmed
on our remote camera after midnight.
A short while later, this man walked the same path.
At the approach of a human, the leopards just hide.
Only when cornered do they attack.
In towns and cities across the country ...
(shouting in a foreign language)
leopards often get themselves into unfamiliar territory.
(shouting in a foreign language)
(dramatic music)
(roaring)
Showing the sheer strength and determination to survive
that got them through the last million or so years,
the leopard just wants to get out of the way.
(roaring)
A leopard on the loose attracts hordes of spectators,
all eager just to get a look
at this most elusive of their neighbors.
Keen to protect both people and leopards,
the Indian Wildlife Authorities generally dart the cat
and take it back to a suitable habitat after a health check.
(soft music)
For leopards, Mumbai is their home too.
To me, it's incredibly that not only can they survive here,
but also that this in fact the densest population
of leopards in the world.
(dramatic music)
With their skills of stealth and concealment,
leopards demonstrate that big cats
really can live alongside us.
(dramatic music)