Tiera: The Pet Leopard

Greetings Friends, Family, and Readers!

Yesterday, during one of my non-conservancy farm member interviews, I came across something that just made me think, "Yep, I'm definitely in Namibia."

I have a running list of "Aaron's Crazy Namibia List" [=future blog post] and there are already about 30 entries of things I'd classify as, well... CRAZY. For example, meeting three pet cheetahs, being mocked charged 4 times by elephants, helping conduct the world's largest game count. These are a few of the things I've been taking note of during my time here.

Meeting a pet leopard easily cracks the top 5 when ranked.

This farm I interviewed is mostly a cattle farm with a fenced in area for game and such. The owner trophy hunts on the side and they're debating about joining the conservancy movement soon.

But during the interview a 1 year old male leopard walked into the living room and I about kicked my coffee over, but everyone was just laughing and said not to worry.

"Meet Tiera Aaron!"

This leopard is basically like a big dog living on the farm and it eats kudu meat that the boys hunt. Once in a while when they find road kill, this also finds its way into the leopards stomach.

The owner of the farm at one point told me, "Would you like to feel how sharp his teeth are?"

"Sure," I said. Then I was like wait a second...

"Wow, they're really sharp on the backside!"

I won't be sticking my fingers in a leopards mouth anymore. I promise.

This WWF gig is pretty crazy stuff! Now I have seen cheetahs and a leopard both in the wild and in personal settings like this.

This kind of stuff is turning out to be a normal "day in the life."

Enjoy the pictures! Thanks for reading!

Cheers,

A.E. Price