Lebala camp, Botswana - Youtube video of Cheetah killing Red Lechwe

PS: Pretty graphic footage - do not watch, if you think you will be disturbed by it ........

Thank You to Sri Sethuram for the footage .......

Good thing they are a coalition of 3 or they would not be dining on such a large male lechwe.

The way they were tussling with the horns, the cheetah could have met a disastrous fate as well. A brutal existence.

Thanks for posting.

Quite an event - thanks for the link, Hari. Even if red lechwe are special favorites of mine -- to me, they are the most spectacularly graceful of antelopes.

Don


I used to be rizzuto

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrynTYYKCZ4

Part 2 of the same video ........... please note, this is some real graphic footage .......

Regards
Hari

Thanks, Lynn and Don ........ Thanks to my cousin Sri for this awesome footage!!!

whoa! Very cool natural event.

Great videos, Hari.

Looking forward to seeing the boys this November.

Cool stuff Hari. What did you shoot this with - DSLR or camcorder?

Glad you'll enjoyed the video.

James, I think it's on one of those Sony HD camcorders, although i think there's only so much you can do with the Youtube ....... i think Sri had to do something to change the format for Youtube.

Enjoyed the video thanks,
In other news - noticed above that "rizzuto" is now "DonTopaz". So, coming up in the world huh, from Italian to Mexican !!!!

ciao - tom

Tom,

I'd mentioned elsewhere that I'd been rizzuto for 8 years on Fodor's, but I've been Don Topaz all my life.

Hari, what kind of camera stabilization did he use? Seemed he was fussing with It quite a bit. He shot the sky quite a bit!

That's only when we had to race towards the sighting, Andy. We were parked away to give the animals their own freedom to do their thing .......... he had enough fussing on his hands trying to get me to shut up during the sighting

hey, I am the *king*of talking during exciting sightings. I start spouting off Cliff Clavin kind of information, which can easily be saved for afterwards.

My challenge to Andy or to anyone else is to shoot something other than the sky or the floor while in a vehicle driven by Spencer as he's racing to follow (especially) dogs or cats chasing a prey.

True, that!!! Hold on to the rails ...............

we will try to get the swimming cheetah video from Little Kwara soon ......

LOL. The vehicle wasn't even moving!

It's good "raw" footage, at 12 minutes total its ok for safari freaks . For general viewing I'd cut it down to about 1 min.

regards - tom

In a moving vehicle, manfrotto superclamp and sturdy ball head would do the trick.

In a moving vehicle only a "Steadicam" type system would work (some).
http://www.steadicam.com/

regards -tom

Wow! Pretty exciting. Those horns scared me a couple of times. The cheetahs had to be exhausted. That was a lot of work!

Very cool, Hari!

Anybody go see African Cats yet? The film crew used a crane with a heli gimbal on the end to shoot walking shots of the cats. It was pretty cool, I must say. Maybe Spencer can mount something like that to his Uri!

African Cats? Yes, good film. There is a thread here about it. Currently num 26.

regards - tom

Whoa! I can't wait to visit Botswana!!!!

Thanks Russell and Andy on your recommendations for clamps and ball heads. Shall pass on the info to Sri.

What this video is however, is not an attempt to produce Nat Geo quality footage on this holiday. Although, I bet most Nat Geo crews would die to be at a sighting like that ....... However, I'm sure he will go on safari again and I'm sure he'd appreciate all your suggestions regarding room for improvement.

Obviously, a scene like that is not scripted so you simply shoot it all. Or as much as you can. Then you go back and edit/cut it to show what you want.

regards - tom

Tom,

I don't think he could be bothered enough to sit and edit it ........ The only reason he finally put it up on Youtube was due to the number of requests for the clip from our friends/family. None of them wanted the "fast food" version of it ......

Ofcourse, for those who think the clips are a bit too long to keep their attention span going, are welcome to choose not to watch it!

Great footage Hari. Illustrates how easy it could be to be for the cheetah to be gored and how essential team work is for these guys. Was it a very hot day? They seem to taking a lot of time to recover from the energy they put out.

Hi Greendrake,

Thanks ..... Sorry we missed each other at Kwara by a few days.

Yes, very hot day. The lechwe kill was around 1PM in the afternoon. They didn't feed on it for atleast two hours later as it was brutally hot and they were completely wiped out from the hunt. They took their time as there was a hyena following them the entire morning .... luckily, i think they good in a good feed. When we found them the next morning, they could hardly move!!!

typo - got in a good feed.

Hari-Maybe next year we will cross paths. I need to expand my horizons and include Lebala next time for a better shot at viewing the wild dogs.