On the Prowl

A wilderness course in South Africa teaches safari-goers a subtle art: tracking leopards, the continent's most elusive big cats.

-  Shamilee Vellu

THINGS WERE NOT going according to plan. I sat in an open-air game cruiser vehicle in South Africa's Pridelands Conservancy, lurching along an ever muddier road that threatened to sink both our wheels and our spirits. Unseasonable weather had brought some of the worst rains in years-rains that were persistent enough to cancel game drives.

But I wasn't there for a traditional safari. This trip was all about leopards, and yet I wouldn't see a single one-that was part of the point.

Pridelands is the location of one of six bush camps owned by Eco Training, an education company that runs accredited courses in safari guiding and wildlife tracking across South Africa, Botswana, Kenya, and Zimbabwe. To date, the company has trained more than 13,000 people from 33 countries. One important skill taught to guides is habituation, which involves exposing animals to the same stimulus (such as a group of people in a vehicle) repeatedly until they get used to it. It's a slow, delicate process. Experienced trackers can spend hundreds of hours following wildlife and acclimating them to humans. The goal is a comfortable, unstressed wild animal: a habituated lion or cheetah, for example, will continue lounging, hunting, or doing whatever it was doing in the presence of a game cruiser, rather than fleeing.

I wanted to understand habituation-specifically, the habituation of South Africa's elusive leopard. Anyone 16 years or older can take one of the Eco Training courses, which range from a seven-day EcoQuest class (which teaches basic bush skills and African ecology) to a one-year accredited professional field guide curriculum (which includes postings at lodges and game reserves). Custom experiences, like the leopard habituation I had eagerly signed up for, are available by request.