When a male leopard cub reaches adulthood, his father will not tolerate him on his territory anymore (there are rare exceptions to this) and the young male will need to leave to establish his own territory somewhere else. This is a dangerous endeavour for the young male leopard. His explorations will bring him into territories of other male leopards where he needs to juggle hunting, not drawing attention and trying to find out if there is an opportunity to establish his own territory. This young male leopard was on such a journey. He was constantly looking over his shoulder, constantly on the move and he was hungry. Because he was so nervous to be discovered by the territorial male, he discarded all rules for hunting. Instead of hiding and patiently stalking the impalas, he just walked towards the herd, hoping he would be lucky, but he was not. He kept doing that with all antelopes he encountered during the day and continued to be unsuccessful. At dusk he had established himself in a tree, waiting that a hunting opportunity would pass under the tree and he could just jump on it. A small antelope did pass, but noticed him crouching on the lowest branch, ready to leap, and ran off. He must have got lucky at some stage during the night. The next day he was happily feeding on a kill and enjoying a bit of a rest.
