A photographer caught high quality images of a rare black leopard at one wilderness camp in Africa.
Will Burrard-Lucas wrote in a blog post that he’s been fascinated by stories of black panthers and their elusive nature since he was a child.
He started to conceptualize his dream of photographing the large and hidden cats after he saw photos of them in the Kabini Forest in Karnataka, India, several years ago.
His first encounter with this black leopard happened there after he was asked to speak at the Nature in Focus Festival in Bangalore where he caught an image of the large cat from faraway.
After this experience, Burrard-Lucas learned from friends about one black leopard that lived in the Laikipia Camp in Kenya.
He set out to find it.
Burrard-Lucas’s Quest for the Rare & Elusive Black Leopard
The camp owners confirmed they had seen several black leopards throughout the years and Burrard decided to make a visit.
He did his best to learn about the leopard’s territory and habits. He set up several camera traps and a high quality DSLR camera and 2 or 3 flashes over several nights.
The last trap he surprised him-he spotted a pair of eyes that were surrounded by inky darkness. Burrard couldn’t believe only a few days were necessary to help him achieve his dreams.
But, soon after he took photos, the black leopard disappeared and he started to make images of a large and spotty male leopard that had chased the younger one away.
For Burrard, the most stunning part about the animal is its eyes.
The photos are the first science data of the black leopard in almost a century. The last documents were in 1909 in Ethiopia and are stored in the National Museum of Natural History in Washington DC.
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