Lizzie And Her 3 Cubs

Less than 1km north of the Urikaruus entrance.
Lizzie and her 3 cubs were laying about 20 meters from the road.

They got up, crossed the road and headed up the side of the ridge. Most cars then left, but we hung around, slowly driving back and forth. we were rewarded a few times when she came back down to the road stalking prey on the opposite side of the riverbed. Spooked by badly behaving children hanging out of car windows, she retreated back up the ridge and to her cubs.
We took a chance that she would come across the lookout point and they did!

Sadly you will see in the video that she is spooked - once again by children hanging out of car windows (they had followed us) after this she crossed the road and left the cubs on top of the ridge on the opposite side of the river bed.

She left them there, came back down, and stalked some springbok.

By this time, we had become quite frustrated with the car full of kids thwarting her hunting attempts!!
We hung back and gave her space as she "leopard" crawled along the road, as vehicles tried to pass us, we asked them not to for her sake! A hungry mom with 3 kids! We were so thankful they agreed, and we all waited (well done everyone who was there!!)
Before we knew it, she was off, and the chase began.
None of us actually saw her catch the springbok, just around the bend, but we all arrived in time to see her make the final kill in the riverbed.

It must have taken about 10 minutes to suffocate before she then attempted to drag the springbok to the trees, she was exhausted, gave up and rested for over half an hour. She then dragged it under the trees, where it took about 10 minutes before she broke through the hide.
Only after feeding for about 15 minutes she went off to fetch her cubs and was back about 20 minutes later with them.

We left at about 2.30pm

We arrived back the following day (20th June) at about 12pm and they were still feasting!, but the road was blocked with too many cars so we left again and came back after 3pm and stayed until 5.30pm before checking into Urikaruus.
The following morning (21st) there was no sign of them or any evidence that there was even a kill!

Although I don't enjoy watching death like this, I have so much respect and understanding what it also cost her to hunt!, risking the safety of her cubs by leaving them alone and the great amount of energy she spent bringing home dinner! Watching the amount of time it took her to recover was amazing!