We are still working to reach our $21,000 (£15,800) goal to give orphaned leopard cub Mohli the soft-release enclosure and specialist care she needs to return to the wild.
When Mohli was only three months old, she lost the one thing every leopard cub depends on to survive: her mother.
As human-wildlife conflict is growing across the Limpopo Province of South Africa, more leopards are losing their lives simply because their natural habitat overlaps with farmland. Mohli became one of its youngest victims after her mother was killed by farmers.
Too small to survive on her own, she wandered desperately in search of food.
Instead of reaching safety, she was caught in a farmer’s trap and found weak, starving and desperately ill.
Leopard cub Mohli was just three months old when she lost her mother. When she was found, she was sick, starving and desperately weak. Source: Indlulamithi Wild Big Cat Sanctuary
By the time rescuers reached her, Mohli was severely malnourished. She was suffering from diarrhoea, dangerously dehydrated and so weak that veterinarians struggled to draw blood because her blood pressure was almost undetectable.
She was fighting for her life. Without her mother to protect her, feed her and teach her how to survive, Mohli had almost no chance of making it on her own.
Today, you can still become the reason her story has a happier ending.
Your donation will help provide everything Mohli needs to recover – expert veterinary care, nutritious food, rehabilitation and, most importantly, the specialized enclosure where she can learn the skills every young leopard should have learnt from her mother.
Mohli is safe at our partner, Indlulamithi Wild Big Cat Sanctuary in Limpopo, where experienced wildlife rehabilitators are helping her recover from the trauma of losing her mother.
It was here she received her name: Mohli, meaning warrior.
But surviving those first few months was only the beginning.
If Mohli is ever to live the wild life she deserves, she must first learn to hunt, stalk prey, avoid danger and become independent. These are vital skills that leopard mothers spend up to two years teaching their cubs.
Because Mohli lost her mother so young, people must now carefully recreate that opportunity without allowing her to become dependent on humans.
Mohli is safe at our partner sanctuary, but she needs a soft-release enclosure and specialist care to learn the skills her mother would have taught her in the wild. Source: Indlulamithi Wild Big Cat Sanctuary
But none of this can happen without you.
We urgently need to raise $21,000 (£15,800) to build Mohli’s 2.5-acre (one-hectare) soft-release enclosure and provide the specialist care she needs during her rehabilitation.
This enclosure will become her classroom.
It is where Mohli will learn to stalk silently through the grass, build her strength and confidence, and develop the instincts her mother never had the chance to teach her.
Every day she spends there brings her one step closer to where she belongs, not behind fences for the rest of her life, but living freely as a wild leopard in a protected reserve.
Please help us reach our goal of $21,000 (£15,800) to give Mohli a fighting chance at returning to the wild, where she belongs.
If you have already donated, THANK YOU.
Your gift today won’t simply build an enclosure. It will help give an orphaned leopard cub her future.
Please make your most generous gift today.
