Stalking The BLACK-FOOTED CAT - wild cats in South Africa

International Wildlife, May 3, 1999

During Lamu's busy 10- to 14-hour nights, I stayed hot on her heels, just 30 to 100 feet behind her. My right arm rested on the truck's open window as I held a spotlight which I shone for hours on end right behind her into the dark nights, my eyes straining along the beam. With my other limbs I performed a peculiar dance: My left hand steered, shifted gears, operated a dictaphone or binoculars, or switched between radio channels and two antennae for tracking; my legs and knees alternatingly worked the gas and clutch and helped to steer around gaping aardvark holes or looming termite mounds and rocks. At sunrise, I fell from my vehicle cramped and covered in fine red dust or countless mosquito bites. In winter, my numb fingers ached with the cold.

Despite the conditions, I always felt exhilarated following Lamu on her hunting forays--knowing that few of the world's 17 other smaller cat species would ever allow a human being to share their night. I was a little less exhilarated when by about 4 am, almost having completed the full night, I would ride into a mud hole, breaking into a 7-foot-deep aardvark tunnel, or hear my tire exhale its air, punctured by a hand-long acacia thorn. At least the ensuing exercise of digging myself out or changing the tire would wake me up. On one occasion, I returned to my hut with half-shut eyes, sleepwalking to the bathroom to brush my teeth, only to be greeted by a yellow cape cobra with fully spread hood.

On one of these nights, Lamu caught 28 mice and carried 14 of them back to Rani (usually after her fifth mouse or bird Rani started playing with her food). While ferrying prey back to the den, Lamu walked, stalked and trotted 6 miles, as recorded from my truck's odometer. With her zigzagging between bushes and grass tufts, doubling back and even hunting in circles, that distance could easily have been triple my crude measurement. In all, during my first year of driving behind Lamu, she stayed within an area of 4.7 square miles.

I also followed the resident male in her area--an animal I'd named Aris. Aris roamed 10 square miles. Although Lamu did not share her territory with other adult females, Aris's realm overlapped that of three other females beside Lamu. Both Lamu and Aris often stopped at conspicuous grass tufts and at dens and termite mounds to direct a fine mist of urine backwards, leaving their individual signatures to lay claim to this area and to attract and find each other in the winter mating season.

Night after night, I was fascinated by Lamu's persistence, tenacious hunting techniques and large variety of prey. Most commonly, she caught small rodents (8 species) and small birds (15 species), but sometimes she took hares larger than herself and birds as heavy as the black bustard. I also watched her scavenging for four nights on a stillborn springbok lamb. Gradually, I came to understand how Bushmen had come to have such great respect for this little predator. She didn't shy away from nasty biting and stinging prey like scorpions, solifuges (fast-running spider relatives), snakes or even an African giant bullfrog, which weighs up to a pound and comes equipped with formidable fighting "teeth."