Observation Note on KLM12 Agni

1. We found KLM12 on the 14th July morning at 7:26 closer to Kumana Wewa 2nd Junction. He walked along the road towards Kumana Villu and at times took a few short cuts through jungle and re appeared on the road and continued his patrol while marking his scent. We followed him almost up to Villuwa before he went into the thick forest at 8:06AM, possibly sand on the road was becoming warm as the sun was out. Our observation window was approx. 40 minutes trailing him on a 2.1KM long walk. The starting point of his walk or for how long he has been walking is unknown as he was already walking on the road by the time we met him at 7:26AM. Please see the 1st picture for map (marked in red).

2. Once again on the same day evening at 5:10PM, approx. 150m away from where he earlier disappeared in the morning, he re appeared. Similarly he started walking on the plains of Villu, at the edge of the forest patch towards Kumana Village. Please see the 1st picture for map (marked in yellow).

3. We saw him starting to catch sight of a herd of water buffaloes feeding on grasses of Villu. He then walked towards them using cover of the forest edge, but when he came to a point where there wasn’t any cover left due to the wide open plain, he took a U turn and started walking back towards where he started. He took some rest lying on the ground and observed the same buffalo herd from a distance. Then he made a quick run into the forest and we watched him rolling on the ground and rubbing his head on the ground. Then he made a reappearance in the open within minutes, but this time with a make up on his face/head; noticed he had rolled on water buffalo dung and applied soft and smelly dung on his face/head. He walked just a few feet away from us and we felt the fresh buffalo scent. He decided to rest a little under the shadows of trees before he crossed the open plain on the other side of the Villu and disappeared into the thick forest. This was another direction to get closer to the buffalo herd unnoticed as there was more forest cover, but we lost sight, hence we don’t know if he continued his hunt or not!

4. We haven’t seen Sri Lankan leopards eating or rolling on buffalo dung and we don’t know the exact reason why he did that. As we were observing him throughout this sighting, we are just rationalizing; maybe he wanted to mask his scent and get closer to the buffalo herd as there wasn’t any solid cover left for him to launch the ambush and buffaloes wouldn’t easily catch his scent?

Our guess can be completely wrong, struggling to explain this!

Have you observed this behaviour previously? Please let us know your thoughts.