“A beautifully filmed, close-up chronicle of a male leopard’s fight for survival in South Africa’s Mala Mala Game Reserve”

Veteran filmmaker Kim Wolhuter is drawn to leopards by their absolute power, grace and beauty and the fact that they live in a world that is very difficult to penetrate.

In National Geographic's Stalking Leopards he follows Tjololo, a four-year-old male leopard living in South Africa's Mala Mala Game Reserve, as Tjololo comes of age in a pitiless and violent world.

He chronicles the young leopard's fight for survival, a constant battle waged on many fronts, against many enemies.

To watch a leopard stalk is to understand the exact meaning of the word. To its prey, a leopard is everywhere and nowhere - one hundred and fifty pounds of sinuous strength and agility as silent and smooth as running water.

But for the young, inexperienced Tjololo, keeping his catch from hyenas requires skill, tough lessons and more than a few heated confrontations. Hyenas approach as he rushes to tree a freshly killed carcass, and Tjololo soon learns that success can be a matter of inches.

Stalking Leopards is an intimate story of Tjololo’s journey into adulthood: claiming territory, fighting old rivals, mating and killing. For Tjololo, amidst Africa’s wild cast of lions, water buffalo, hyena’s elephants and impalas, the only way to walk is proudly and alone.

Stalking Leopards won an Emmy award at the News and Documentary awards in 2003 for ‘Outstanding Individual Achievement’

Narrated by Keith David.
Filmed & produced by Kim Wolhuter for National Geographic (2001).