Snow Leopard Elegy

Chapter 21 Animal Files - Leopards
The snow leopard is the most representative species in the alpine and plateau regions of Asia. It is mainly distributed in Central Asian countries, Mongolia, Afghanistan, northern India, Nepal, Pakistan and other places, as well as the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and Pamirs in my country.Most of these places are areas without human habitation, with only a few alpine cushion vegetation growing.

Jaguars are widely distributed throughout North and South America, as far north as Canada and as far south as Argentina.Since there are no tigers in the entire Americas, and the local people have never seen a real tiger, it is also called a jaguar.

[The position of the leopard in nature]
The leopard is also a ferocious carnivore, ranking at the top of the food chain in nature.

It is a law of the jungle that the closer species behave to each other, the more intense their competition and the higher their tension.

Lions, tigers, and leopards are all big cats, and their hunting methods and prey targets are roughly the same, so the relationship between them is particularly bloody.

Leopards are no match for tigers, so in areas where tigers are infested, leopards will leave with interest.And tigers will not allow the smell of leopards in their territory.

In the African grasslands, when a lion sees a leopard, it will attack. Once it finds a leopard den, it will kill all the cubs without hesitation, and will not eat them. fuck off.

Leopards not only have to face hunting and killing by humans, but also have to deal with the persecution of lions and tigers, which are more ferocious than it, and also bear intraspecific competition and food pressure.Life is not easy for wild leopards.

[The status of the leopard in people's minds]
People often say jackals, tigers, and leopards, which are used to describe brutal and fierce people.The leopard ranks last, which shows that people don't hate leopards as much as they do jackals, nor do they fear tigers as much.

People admire the magnificence of leopard skin. There is an idiom called "Guiping Leopard in a Tube", which means that the beautiful panorama of a leopard cannot be seen from inside the bamboo tube.In the past, when hunting, hunters liked to wear a piece of colorful leopard skin around their waists to show their bravery and vigor.

There is a new type of tank in the United States called "Jaguar", and there is an armed force in France named "Black Panther Commando".It can be seen that people appreciate leopards.

[Behavioral characteristics of leopards]
Leopards have strong limbs and strong jumping ability, with a jump distance of up to 12 meters. They are very alert, flexible and fast in action. Compared with lions and tigers, their hunting skills are stronger.Lions can climb trees, but they are short trees and cannot swim; tigers can swim, but they cannot climb trees; leopards can swim, but they can climb trees, and they can climb trees no matter how tall they are, and they have more trees than lions and tigers. A "brilliant trick": When hunting, it often ambush on the tree, and when the prey passes under the tree, it jumps down, which is really a disaster, the prey is caught before it understands what is going on.

After catching prey, leopards do not eat dozens of kilograms in one go like tigers.It is very good at living, knowing that it is not easy to catch food once, and the leftover food is never thrown away casually. Instead, it is taken to a tall tree for storage, so that it will neither rot nor be stolen.When hungry or unable to catch prey for a while, come back and eat the leftovers.Among animals, it is really rare to live a life like a leopard.

The breeding season of leopards is not fixed, with 2-3 per litter.Mother leopards take good care of their cubs.During the period of time when the cubs were born, they did not know how to defecate and pee. The cubs had to lick the anus of the cubs with their tongues, so that the cubs could excrete them;

After the cub grows up, the mother leopard will teach the cub how to ambush, jump, hold down and bite the throat of the prey, etc.After all these movements are learned, the cubs will leave their mothers and live independently after they are one year old.

The snow leopard is covered with silver-white long fur, with circles of hazel spots, and is the most beautiful of all leopards.The tail of snow leopards is longer than that of ordinary leopards, and it is fluffy and fat. When walking, it drags behind, which is particularly conspicuous.

It is a typical alpine animal that lives above the snow line of alpine snow all year round, so it is called snow leopard.

In winter, snow leopards follow their prey down to an altitude of 2000-3500 meters above sea level; in summer, as the snow and ice melt on the mountains, snow leopards move to high mountains above 6000 meters.Its coat color also matches the color of the snow.

Snow leopards have fixed lairs, which are usually built in rock holes and are small in size.Usually celibate, only live in pairs before and after the estrus period.

Snow leopards mainly eat blue sheep and alpine argali, and also eat small animals such as snow rabbits, pikas and marmots.Predation adopts the method of lurking and surprise attack.Because it is the only beast on the mountain, it has the nickname of the mountain overlord.

Among all leopards, the jaguar has the strongest hunting ability. It can chase turtles, soft-shelled turtles, crocodiles and anacondas in the water, not to mention fishing.It feeds on catching deer and wild boars on land, and even monkeys and birds on trees cannot escape its huge mouth.

Although jaguars are fierce and cunning, hunters still have ways to deal with them.The most commonly used method is to release a group of specially trained dogs to chase the jaguar.After several days or even a week of chasing, circling, and encircling, finally, the jaguar was exhausted and forced to climb a tree, and the hunter dragged it down from the tree with a lasso.

[An anecdote about the leopard]

In order to shoot a wildlife documentary called "Eye of the Leopard", British filmmaker Derek Joubert, in the grasslands of the Okavango Delta in Botswana, Africa, watched a bird named "Legadima". The leopard was followed and photographed for three and a half years.

During a hunting operation, "Legadima" killed a female baboon.Just when the leopard was about to feast, a baby baboon suddenly appeared beside the dead female baboon.

The baby baboon was just a day old, and it crawled out of its mother's cooling embrace, and staggered towards the leopard "Legadima".

When the young leopard "Legadima" saw the young baboon, he immediately forgot that he was a "hunter". On the contrary, a maternal instinct arose in his heart.Instead of eating the baby baboon, it actually acted as its "surrogate mother" and protector!

The smell of blood on the female baboon attracted a large number of hyenas. They gathered around the female baboon's body, scrambling for its meat, and stared at the baby baboon next to the leopard. Don't dare to make mistakes.

In order to protect the baby baboon, the leopard "Legadima" carefully grabbed its neck with its teeth and climbed up a tree with it.

In the tree, "Legadima" held the baby baboon in his arms like protecting his own baby.

Joubert said: "On several occasions, the baby baboon fell out of the tree. Each time, 'Legadima' rushed down the tree immediately and got the baby back up the tree before the hyenas attacked. It's true. A very rare and very touching scene."

Unfortunately, "it couldn't have survived the cold night without the care and feeding of its biological mother," Joubert said. "When the sun came up, 'Legadima' also realized that the baby was dead , so it also left the tree."

[My close contact with the leopard]
The fence of the yard was eaten away by white ants. I went to the mountain to cut wild bamboo to repair the fence.The journey was a bit far, so I brought a box of glutinous rice for lunch.

I was lucky, when I was cutting bamboo, I happened to come across a jungle fowl nestling in its nest. I chopped it down with a knife, stripped it of its feathers and removed its dirt, put it on a bamboo stick, and roasted it on the bonfire.

After a while, the fragrance overflowed, making my saliva flow out.Roast chicken is killed and eaten now, golden in color, shiny with oil, crispy in skin and tender in meat. Hey, even the emperor can’t enjoy this wild fun!
I was enjoying myself when I suddenly heard rustling noises coming from the impenetrable spotted thatch on the left. I turned my head and looked, almost peeing my pants in fright—the head of a colorful leopard came out of the thatch. lean out.

Leopards can swim, climb trees, run like flying, and are more difficult to deal with than tigers. Among hunters, there is a saying that there are two leopards, two pigs and three tigers.It was only ten meters away from me at most, and I didn't dare to run. If I ran, it would jump up and throw me down easily from behind.

The guy must have been drawn here by the smell of roast chicken.With an idea, I threw the raw chicken that was not fully cooked in my hand towards it, hoping that it would be greedy for the delicious roast chicken and let me go.

The grilled chicken rolled to the grass three or four meters away from the leopard's head.It raised its nostrils, sniffed greedily, licked its lips with its long leopard tongue, and slowly drilled half of its body out of the thatch bushes. It looked at me with a pair of big copper bell eyes, and then at the roast chicken, showing a smile. A look of indecision.Holding the hatchet, I was so nervous that the hairs on my body stood on end.

After waiting for a while, it stepped towards the roast chicken.Thank goodness rotisserie chicken has more appetite for it than I do.I took the opportunity to stand up and retreat step by step. After retreating to a safe distance, I turned around and fled.

[Living status of leopards]
The beautiful leopard was once the prey that people scrambled to catch.There is an old man in Henan named He Guangwei who captured 60 leopards alive with his bare hands during his 230-year hunting career. He was known as the "Leopard Hunting Hero".

In the 70s, a 19-year-old young woman surnamed Chen in Yanziya, Shennongjia, Hubei, killed a 7-foot-long leopard by breaking its waist and spine, and was praised by newspapers as a contemporary female Wu Song.

In the era when the life of leopards was regarded as trivial, many beautiful leopards died unexpectedly.

Finally, the big cats are elusive and endangered.

Today, the leopard has been listed as a national first-class protected animal.

[Message about Leopard]
To say that someone is particularly courageous is often described by the phrase "eating the courage of a leopard". It seems that a leopard is a particularly bold and reckless beast.But anatomy proves that leopard gall is no larger than tiger or bear gall.

In fact, the behavior of leopards is very cautious, even a bit shy. They are always cautious in the mountains and forests. When they see people from a distance, they immediately go into the dense forest to hide themselves.

But even so, leopards could not escape the tragic fate of being wiped out by hunters.

I hope that the Wildlife Protection Act can really bring peace and happiness to leopards.

break into the animal world
Shen Shixi

When I write animal novels, I often receive letters from readers. In addition to enthusiastic encouragement, they are curiously asking whether the animal stories I write are personal experiences.My answer is yes.

When I was 16 years old, I happened to meet the movement of educated youths to go to the mountains and go to the countryside. All the teenagers in the city were driven to the countryside to settle down. I also bid farewell to Shanghai amidst the crying of my mother and sisters and came to a village called Manguang Lane in Xishuangbanna, Yunnan. Dai Village.

It is far away from the town, the land is sparsely populated, surrounded by impenetrable tropical rainforest, and enjoys the reputation of plant kingdom and animal kingdom.When working in the fields, egrets and peacocks hover around; when cutting firewood in the mountains, you can often meet red deer and blue sheep.There are not only a large number of wild animals, but also the strong blood relationship between humans and animals.The wizard dances the gods using a large rosary made of 24 patellas of tigers, leopards, jackals, dogs, cows, horses, pigs, sheep, mules, deer, and deer; The bison skeleton; the congratulatory message at the wedding is: the groom is as simple as a cow, as alert as a monkey, as brave as a mountain leopard, as beautiful as a peacock, as virtuous as a two-horned hornbill, and as good at housekeeping as a silver-backed jackal Most of the burial objects at the funeral are wooden carvings of birds and animals, as if being with animals is a complete life no matter in the underworld or in the underworld.

There are also many anecdotes and anecdotes about animals in the local area, such as the buffalo that came to kill the tiger that came to eat the calf; what the elephants used their long trunks to draw water during the drought, and helped an old man who had rescued a mammary elephant to water the dying The dead Baogudi; what kind of bear wears the clothes of the stolen people and drives the unreasonable sheep into the mountains. There are as many stories as there are leaves on the tree.

I have lived in Manguangnongzhai for six years. In order to survive, I raised cattle, drove horses, took fish hawks to Lancang River to catch fish, and led hounds to Brown Mountain to hunt. I dealt with animals almost every day, and witnessed Many touching animal stories.

Once, I climbed to a tree to dig out a bird's nest, and accidentally knocked down a hornet's nest. The angry hornets chased me and had nowhere to hide.My faithful hound rushed forward, barking and snapping into the air, so that I could escape, but my hound was stung to death by the wasp.

Another time, I was besieged by a group of jackals, also known as red wolves, on a lonely big tree. I hadn’t had a drop of water or a grain of rice for two whole days, and I was so hungry that I was about to collapse.A falcon I raised flew from the stockade to the forest to find me, then flew back to the stockade to call the village head, and led the hunters to rescue me from a desperate situation.

This extraordinary life experience has provided me with rich creative materials.

(End of this chapter)