Big cats of Qorokwe

Endangered cheetahs are at the bottom of the big cat hierarchy, where they struggle to hold their own against stronger predators like lions and hyenas. Yet, just a few weeks after making Molelo’s acquaintance, we met Phefo, a mother cheetah who was successfully raising five cubs, right under Molelo’s nose. 

Phefo means “wind” and if you could have seen her run, you’d know why she was given this title. She stalked and chased down prey to feed her large family. By the time we met her, she had successfully raised her cubs to six months old, an extraordinary achievement for a single mother in a landscape dominated by lions. 

Between Phefo and Molelo’s growing families, we had our work cut out for us. Over the seasons, we filmed Molelo as he patrolled his territory and defended it from rival males, his roars dominating the Qorokwe soundtrack. We filmed his growing cubs and their long-suffering mothers, who had become bound to satisfying the insatiable appetites of a dozen little tyrants.

When the summer rains fell and the tiny, stick-legged impala lambs joined the vast Qorokwe menagerie, we filmed Phefo teaching her cubs the art of hunting them. These lessons paid off the following autumn, when the cheetah family (by now looking more like a strange, fully-fledged coalition), worked together to bring down impala rams that were exhausted and distracted by the demands of the annual rut.   

What about leopards? I hear you ask. Our leopard character is named Sephiri – secret – for a reason. For weeks, we tracked her through the maze of Big Pan’s woodlands, to little avail. Her existence was a rumour spread by the alarm calls and chattering of monkeys, squirrels and birds. Finally, we began to learn her ways and her haunts, and with that our sightings – and footage – improved. Nearly a year to the day after our arrival, Sephiri let us in on the secret she’d been keeping – two little cubs of her own.

In the end, we spent 16 months living and filming in this African Eden. It was an enormous privilege to watch all these young cats grow up. We witnessed the cheetah cubs fledge and the lion cubs grow into strapping adolescents. We cheered the leopard cubs as they cleared the dangerous first hurdles of their lives. And yet, many of our memorable moments didn’t come from the cats. 

Mostly, we were struck by the sheer abundance of Qorokwe. In the final, scorching weeks of the dry season, a never-ending parade of elephant families would shuffle past our camp, day and night, to drink and bathe in the Gomoti River. One afternoon, we heard a strange hum overhead like a squadron of planes. We looked up to see thousands of marabou storks cruising across the sky, following the summer thunderstorms. Then there was the winter night that we woke up to thousands of hooves splashing though the inundated plains, as massive herds of buffalo converged on the Gomoti River’s edge. In the coming days, dozens of young nomadic lions would arrive in their wake, causing havoc for Molelo and his pride.

As with all good things, our time in Qorokwe was coming to an end, and it wasn’t easy to tear ourselves away. We spent our last days with Molelo and his family. He’d done a remarkable job getting his cubs safely through their vulnerable first year. Sadly, while we were editing the film, the guides messaged us to say that Molelo had died. He’d been overthrown by three young males pushing in from the south and his pride had retreated to the interior. But it’s comforting to know that his legacy lives on in his sons and daughters, who would come to be his parting gift to Qorokwe. 

Just as Molelo’s legacy lives on through his cubs, the legacy of Qorokwe’s big cats will live on through Robyn’s documentary. We’re thankful to Robyn Keene-Young and Adrian Bailey for capturing these remarkable moments. Their work not only brings the magic of Qorokwe to the world, it underscores the importance of preserving wild places like the Okavango Delta for future generations. 

Follow the saga of these three big cat families in "Big Cats, Small World”, premiering Wednesday, January 22 at 8/7c on PBS, and witness the legacy of these extraordinary creatures. 

Images credit: Adrian Bailey / Courtesy of The WNET Group and Terra Mater Studios