A tasty morsel—left uneaten
by David Catchpoole
Incredibly, this killer leopard carried this one-day-old baboon high up a tree to
safety—out of reach of a pack of hyenas below.
The camera crew who took this photo [in the original printed article] recounted
how Legadema—as they’d named her—cuddled the newborn to keep it
warm through the long, African night.1
‘It was as if nature had turned on its head completely,’ said one of
the film-makers, Dereck Joubert. He explained how baboons are a major food source
for leopards—Legadema herself had just killed the baby baboon’s mother.
Joubert related that when the newly-orphaned baboon called out, ‘we thought
we were going to hear a major crunch and the leopard smacking its lips’. Instead,
Legadema gently picked up the infant by the scruff of its neck, and climbed the
tree.
Despite the leopard’s efforts, by morning the tiny baboon was dead. ‘We
think it was simply too small to survive the night without its natural mother and
the sustenance she could provide,’ said Joubert, adding that when Legadema
realised the baby had died, she moved on.
Such behaviour, from an evolutionary perspective, makes little sense—even
with an overly-active maternal instinct, surely the leopard would not have left
such a tasty morsel uneaten once all hope of its reviving had passed?
From the perspective of biblical history, however, this and other evolution-defying
examples2,3,4 of suppressed carnivory are a beautiful echo of a pre-Fall
world without death or pain, and a reminder of the biblical prophecy of such a time
to come (Isaiah 11:6; 65:25).
A reader’s comment:
Jennifer P., Australia
I just watched the video and listened to the commentary and it is interesting that
the man's voice over says something quite Biblical. He notes that it had been a
strange night when the leopard had lay down with the baboon. Of course it never
makes them (Nat Geo) question for even a moment all their evolutionary presuppositions.
I find it all but impossible to watch National Geographic as they continually push
their evolutionary fairytales and millions and billions of years and seem only intent
on video footage of blood and gore predation events. It is so aggregious that I
can't watch it. It is weird that they even displayed this incident and that it was
not immediately self censored as contrary to their overwhelming agenda. It makes
me wonder if there have been other such events that never see the light of day?
Thanks again for your wonderful website. May God bless you all.
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References
- Brennan, Z., A leopard changes its spots … and saves a baby baboon, The
Sunday Mail (Brisbane), 17 December 2006, p. 53.
- Echoes of Eden—Instead of eating baby antelopes, this
lion wants to love and protect them, Creation 24(4):14–15,
2002; <creation.com/oryx>.
- Tigers and pigs … together?, Creation
27(3):28–29, 2005; <creation.com/tigerpig>.
- The leopard’s friend, Creation
28(1):10, 2005; <creation.com/leopardfriend>.
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