The Cat Report – Episode 1
Thandi is a 12-year-old leopardess that has stalked the verdant bushveld of Djuma for her whole life, successfully raising numerous litters of cubs. She is indeed the feline queen of this realm. Her latest cub, Tlalamba, is a playful little princess and at 9-months-old is rapidly growing and learning the ways of the wild.
Tlalamba is the daughter of the ruling duke, Tingana, a strapping and powerful dominant male also in his 12th year of age. His sovereignty was recently challenged when he sustained severe wounds that weakened his position and resulted in interlopers encroaching on his boundaries. But now Tingana is on the up and up again.
The monarch of the North Clan, a group of 70+ hyenas, is matriarch Waffles. She fought her way into the most prized position of power from a lowly rank and has commanded respect from her clanmates ever since. She is getting on in years, and her throne could soon be up for grabs with her only female descendant, Soup, a granddaughter, in the running. But another female hyena, Sauer, has her eye on the royal seat of domination so there could be a battle brewing.
While some hyenas squabble over kills, others have theirs pilfered from under their noses as the powerful Sausage Tree Pride of lions, led by the formidable and experienced lioness Kinky Tail, thunder onto the Cat Report stage. There is nothing as quintessentially African as a conflict between lions and hyena, especially in the middle of the day.
Kakenya is a cheetah adept at hunting the Thomson’s gazelle that hide out in the long waving grass of the Mara Plains. And for good reason. A seasoned mother, having raised four cubs to adulthood in recent times, Kakenya now has five tiny mouths to feed.