00:07special animal this special special girl
00:19come here my boy here we go all grumpy pants grumpy pants
00:34hey everyone so I'm sitting here with Vyetsi and Ginny's just in front of me
00:40and today I want to take a moment to remember Nikita the black leopard and
00:49don't ask me why I decided that sitting with Vyetsi and Ginny is the
00:55appropriate place to remember her I just thought it feels right we're sitting
01:01here in the shade of the tree spring is definitely in the air the animals are a
01:10lot happier as a result I think we're all happy to see the end of winter but yeah
01:16I just wanted to remember a very very special animal Nikita the black leopard
01:22what a special animal she lived a really full life got to see a lot of things in
01:29her life and lived to the ripe old age of 23 which is a massive innings for a leopard
01:38yeah yeah oh come quickly so here's Carla Nikita Cole's coming on 12 a 12 year old leopard male and
01:48Nikita is a female she's just slightly younger
01:50they're black leopard so it's the the melanistic gene expressed not really black if you look at them
01:56it's actually a kind of a brindle color and if you catch them in the right light you'll see their
02:01normal spotted pattern
02:03are indigenous to South Africa all the way up into Africa but a very different cat to work
02:10with not like the hyenas hyenas have their own little complicated social hierarchy
02:15lions have a socialness but are a lot easier to work with a lot more friendly
02:21leopards are another beast they are anti-social solitary animals and that's the way they like it
02:32so as you can see this enclosure really does have
02:35some nice little areas for the leopards to hide this is one of their favorite trees
02:41they often climb up this tree and spend lazy afternoons hanging over those branches
02:47well it's interesting in captivity you always face the dilemma of an animal staying on its own as it would
02:54in the wild or does it have companionship due to the fact that it is an unnatural environment
03:00we found over the years that having companionship is important and it's in fact more important than
03:05and then being on their own within a territory as this is a little enclosure they do tend to spend
03:12time
03:12apart most of the time and they do come together when when they want to so it's a good it's
03:18a good
03:18situation it's a male and a female which makes it a little bit easier but it's not typical of the
03:24a while this is not the the situation they would come together to mate and then part and he would
03:29carry on patrolling his territory and she would then have her cubs raise them up to a certain age
03:34and then say goodbye and like that one day it's that light switch moment where she says you're on your
03:38own and off she goes being solitary again so very interesting animal um you know again not much known
03:46about them really intimately um because they are so secretive so then you know we always say when
03:52you're going in the bush uh leopards only appear when they want you to see them if they don't want
03:57you to see them you don't see them you can literally drive past the leopard five meters away and not
04:01see
04:01it what can i say about nikita she never put a foot wrong her entire life she was a gentle
04:09soul
04:10uh small in stature but make no mistake she packed a powerful punch if she wanted to
04:17um so if she was adamant about getting something uh which is not something that many people uh always
04:26saw they didn't always see that quality and that trait but yeah she would definitely give cole a run
04:32for his money if there was something that she wanted so i think that size um really uh you you
04:40could
04:40underestimate that size um and and you'll be on the receiving end as a result not that i can say
04:48you
04:48know 23 years guys i ever had an incident with nikita where i thought to myself that was close you
04:54know
04:54she was challenging me or or doing something uh that i didn't uh like character wise not at all uh
05:01as i
05:02say she never ever uh placed a foot wrong and uh generally was a um a gentle soul and i
05:10think a great
05:10ambassador for her species she was really well loved here at the sanctuary and also just generally in videos
05:20hello gorgeous
05:25hey kitty hey everyone um how you doing you're probably wondering what on earth am i doing with
05:36the crate in the back of the car um and with none other than a black leopard in the crate
05:42um a black
05:45leopard by the name of nikita who i'm sure you all know um so it turns out just before i
05:51left
05:52to go overseas uh nikita was showing some weird weird symptoms for you know from previous knowledge
06:01this was clear symptoms of some form of toxicity um or at least i thought so i made the decision
06:09to
06:10rush her to the vet so happy to have you back my sweetie this is the nicest animal you'll ever
06:15meet
06:16old nikita um we have a long a long history together um a long friendship hello my sweetie look who's
06:25there
06:26look who's there is he as excited as we think he is hey and you go you can let him
06:33out
06:40oh you want to go you scared you're missing out on something boy curly he wants to go to the
06:46vet you
06:47want to go to the vet for a check-up boy no okay well how about you say hello to
06:51your lovely girlfriend
06:57she smell weird she smells like vet that's better
07:05lick all those vet smells of her well that went well um
07:10i always find it quite interesting uh reuniting the animals because as we're leaving now nikita
07:18is found her favorite spot next to the night pen which she always lies next to in the shade
07:26as if nothing has been different all right so what i would do is just put
07:36a little bit of the sauce there and some of the pulchards there and some pulchards there
07:48okay a few things that the black leopards colony to really enjoy uh the first is pulchards i think
07:56most of you who follow me would know that the leopard's absolute firm favorite is a tin of pulchards
08:20so it's a very different interaction
08:30with nikita
08:34it's too cold um nikita is very touchy-feely very tactile and loves to loves to loves to lick
08:46um nikita doesn't mind being touched um nikita actually enjoys a good scratch
08:53and uh yeah i'll go and follow her get her in the sun here but she will always come up
09:00to you for
09:01affection and it's not always about food which is nice it's nice to be liked for things other than
09:10just food so let's go into the bushes here hello my girl
09:19how what it's a very nice area here my girl it's a very nice area
09:33that beautiful tail long tail like a colobus monkey and now she comes running again
09:45you can run for a granny hey granny kitty come come come
09:57what she does like is for me to hold it in my hand so that um her dearest old teeth
10:06don't get worn down don't get worn down by the grit beautiful animal and so gentle
10:16i don't think i'd even hold an egg like this in my hand from my dog
10:22there we go one whole egg for nikita let me just give you the last bit there we go suck
10:29that in
10:30yum yum yum look at that face something nikita loves to do is lick your skin and she's always
10:40liked doing that ever since a little cub what's that what that's really about is the salt that's
10:45on your skin so she actually likes that saltiness she's been all cute
10:56she wants to get my fluffy on top of my camera
11:03it it was a bit of a bittersweet moment saying goodbye to nikita
11:08i uh the sweet the sweet side of things was that she was no longer um held captive she was
11:16free
11:16um and free to be with uh cole if that's where we want to believe she's gone um and i
11:23think yeah the
11:24the last you know months of living on her own were pretty we're pretty lonely um she started to
11:31struggle towards the end so actually very happy in a sense that uh she's free from that um obviously
11:39losing another loved one here at the sanctuary is always very difficult and it just reminds us
11:45or reminds me um of the limited time that we have with these beautiful animals and maybe that's why
11:53i'm sitting here with vayetzi because you know vayetzi did have a few of his health issues um jenny does
12:00remind me of a lion version of of nikita um truthfully she's a small lioness in stature but she she
12:09can
12:09pack a punch and um she's also a very gentle soul so finish up with nikita and what what i
12:16was actually
12:17saying is nikita can be the ripe old cow and she wants to be like like today when i came
12:25in here
12:25she was so excited to see me uh she kind of jumped on my arm and tore my shirt um
12:32so yeah she still
12:34she still she still can pack a punch kitty
12:41behave yourself my darling
12:49yeah i hope her memory will live on for a long long time to come
12:52special animal this special special girl
13:00she's so excited to see me um
13:22so
