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A rare bond between human and leopard

The recent film “Living with Big Cats” will be screening tonight followed by a question and answer session with Emmy award-winning filmmakers Dereck and Beverly Joubert.

By Frank Shyong

Oct. 18, 2009 10:11 p.m.

Dereck and Beverly Joubert were exhausted, frustrated and caked in riverbed mud from the Okavango Delta in Botswana.

The Emmy award-winning filmmakers and married couple had been chasing a 6-month-old leopard for hours in 90-plus-degrees heat with pounds of camera equipment and survival gear in tow, only to realize that she had been waiting for them at their camp all along, tail swishing with what Dereck Joubert interpreted as a satisfied air.

“Her look said, “˜Well, let’s get going guys,'” said Dereck Joubert, who is a National Geographic explorer-in-residence, along with Beverly Joubert.

Dereck Joubert, the filmmaker of the pair, and Beverly Joubert, the photographer, met the leopard when she was only eight days old. Over the next four years and through two films, the Jouberts would form an inexplicably close relationship with the leopard that became the subject matter for the documentary “Living with Big Cats,” which will screeen at the James Bridges Theater tonight at 6:45 p.m., followed by a Q&A with the Jouberts.

During the filming of the documentary, which describes the making of the 2006 Emmy award-winning “Eye of the Leopard,” the Jouberts would wake up at 4 a.m. every day and shadow the leopard’s every move until 9 p.m.

“If she slept, we would count her spots. If she hunted, we would follow her at a respectful distance,” Dereck Joubert said.

The relationship soon transcended that of an academic and subject. They decided to name the leopard Legadema, which means “light from the sky” in Setswana, the local dialect, and the leopard began to recognize the Jouberts as trusted companions, developing a ritualized greeting for them.

According to Dereck Joubert, every time Legadema encounters the pair, she first sniffs at his wife’s feet and then gently takes his foot into her mouth.

“She had very much adopted us,” Dereck Joubert said. “And we spend so much time with her that she became deeply ingrained in our lives.”

Dereck Joubert admits that the relationship is almost paternal in nature.

“When (the leopard) began looking for mates, I would always say to Beverly, “˜No, he’s not nearly good enough for her,'” Dereck Joubert said.

But the Jouberts have a deep-seated communion with the Botswanan wilderness that extends beyond their affection for a single leopard. They are heavily involved with conservation efforts all over Botswana and work closely with the Botswana Tourism Board to promote sustainable eco-tourism as a method of preserving the wilderness in which many of Africa’s keystone species make their home.

They are the directors of Wilderness Safaris and the Great Safari Company, companies which promote and provide sustainable ecotourism practices as a means of preserving the wilderness. Recently, they began the Big Cat Initiative, a conservation effort which seeks to secure the future of large cat species around the world.

“I think everyone thinks that someone’s taking care of these iconic animals, but the truth is no one is,” Dereck Joubert said. According to the Big Cat Initiative’s Web site, most big cat populations have experienced declines of around 90 percent in the last 50 years. Dereck Joubert said he believes the consequences will be dire, not only for Botswana’s eco-tourism industry, which is the nation’s second largest industry, but for ecosystem health.

“When we wipe (big cat species) out, whole ecosystems collapse,” Dereck Joubert said.

Leslee Hall, the North American representative for the Botswana Tourism Board, said that the Jouberts’ films have been critical to the success of the eco-tourism industry.

“Over the last couple of years, the Jouberts’ efforts have contributed in large part to the successful conservation of several major species,” Hall said.

And the Jouberts have a uniquely personal stake in the conservation effort: They are residents of the Okavango Delta themselves. They have lived in a tent on an island in the middle of the Okavango since they graduated from university. From their front yard over the last 20 years, they’ve watched prides of lions hunting buffalo, elephants drinking from and bathing in watering holes and occasionally, leopards lounging across the branches of sycamore fig trees.

“The Okavango Delta truly is one of the last pristine wildernesses on earth,” Hall said. “There’s something humbling about being there, surrounded completely by animals and wildlife.”

For Dereck and Beverly Joubert, it’s home.

“This is really where my soul rests,” Dereck Joubert said.

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