Spotting the Elusive Tilo

Over the course of the past five weeks of our conservation focused expedition, I have seen all of Karongwe’s focus animals numerous times and have had amazing sightings of each of them, with the exception of one individual – Tilo. Tilo is a collared female leopard (Panthera pantus) and, while telemetry is fairly straightforward for the other animals, she is very good at being a leopard – meaning if she doesn’t want to be seen, you won’t see her. I can’t count the number of times I have had her on the strongest signal possible yet was unable to actually find her. Seeing Tilo became an obsession for many of the volunteers, including myself.

Finally, this week, on my last attempt, I caught a glimpse of one of the most beautiful creatures on earth. Her signal was narrowed down to a specific area and we stopped to fine tune the direction next to a huge tree that we had already past a couple times on the drive. Simultaneously, we all looked at the tree and thought ‘This would make an excellent leopard tree.’ All of a sudden, there was movement on one of the middle branches. ‘There she is!’ It was Tilo. All of our attention focused on this tree had spooked her and she quickly descended from her perch but not before pausing (while vertical, head first going down the trunk of the tree, mind you) to stare at us and then continue down to disappear into the bush. It was over quickly but those few seconds demonstrated all that is known about leopards – their grace and agility, their strength and power, as well as their timidity. Although it didn’t last long, the last word heard as Tilo disappeared summed up the entire experience: “Awesome.”

Bess Wayburn, Volunteer, USA

Spotting the Elusive Tilo