Just watched a Doco on the leopards of Sri Lanka's Yala national park. Yala's supposed to have the highest concentration of these cats in the world and the biggest in size as well. Saw footage of a female jumping on the back of a water buffalo calf and hanging on as the mother tryed to gore it, fantastic stuff.
Just love watching those big cats

Bakes

So tell us what happenned! I can't imagine the cat being able to finish the job with an irate mama buff doing her part. I wouldn't think that subspecies would be the largest. By the record books the biggest Indian leopards are not as big as the biggest from Africa. Because of the cold climate, the Amur leopard of Siberia and Pershian leopard should via with the African cats for the largest. But it's good that they are doing very well there.

I sincerely hope that those populations of Amur leopards will survive and persist well into the future. The sad thing for me is whenever I watch a wildlife program I realize that little to nothing of substance is gained from the documentary. They serve to entertain those of us in the First World, but how does it really benefit the species or the people who must coexist with them ? How do they really benefit conservation efforts ? By boosting fundraisers to groups in the U.S., who in turn do nothing but pontificate.
I am disgusted with the marketing of "preservation" by people like Steve "The Crocodile Hunter" Irwin. He does more harm to the worlds crocodilian populations by preaching non use and telling people to avoid croc products. That is completely backwards, every country that has a stable or growing croc population all have one thing in common. They have programs in place that give the animals value through sustainably utilizing them.
What kind of ego must it take to have a syndicated TV show that sets yourself up as an expert and a "conservationist". When the reality is that you're actions are detrimental to the species you purport to protect. Truely sickening.

Here's a site with real information on the worlds felids,

IUCN Cat Specialist Group

And another on crocodilians,

IUCN Crocodile Specialist Group

Leo
Yep she got the calf! She was down low and backed into a bit of scrub, so the buff could only come in one way. She got hit a few times with the horns but nothing serious. Other interesting footage included a dust up with a sloth bear and a confrontation with some croc's over a huge pig carcass. I don't know the size of the african or siberian loepards but the average males at yala go 200lb according to the doco.
Bakes

Well of course, the Conservationist and the "Green" folks don't realize they are screwing it up in the long run.

It always easier to react and let somebody else do your thinking for you and to ignore the facts and history.

Bakes, am I to assume the buff calf, sloth bear and croc incident were by the same female leopard? If so, she's one feisty critter. When it comes to stated weights, documentaries can be off a bit. They may have heard of a 200 pound male and just assumed that to be average. Anyway, a 200 lb. average male population would indeed make them the largest of the subspecies.

I too love to watch documentaries on all kinds of wildlife. I watch the discovery channel and Natl Geo channel a lot. I do however, as was pointed out, do not like the ever so commmon sub themes of hunters often being the reason for the demise of a paticular species. Often times they like to combine the terms hunter and poacher, using both seemingly interchangeably. That I do not like, but there is no alternative, so I watch them anyways. They are a great way to see some awesome footage of African wildlife. I watched one where a lioness was alone with a couple of her cubs and were surrounded by a herd of Nyati. The lioness was forced to move out, but had to leave the cubs. The buff actually went after the cubs in a manner that was quite cruel, and something I was shocked to see, being as how it seems like it should be the other way around, with the lion after the buff, but under the circumstances....

I think the Natl Geo doco's are the best, and cover a wide range of wildlife and topics that are usually quite interesting to watch.

However, they are, in my case, usually something that plants the african bug deeper into me...

In one memorable event,I stalked leopard in Muree Hills National Park,with nothing but camera ready in my hands.
Maybe it was influnce of Jim Corbett's book I took along for that trip or the news of missing cow from the village at the edge of park.
I took every precaution told by Jim,just to test myself and found how difficult and stressful stalking leopards on foot really is,and it made me realised how cool-headed and calculated that great hunter was.
Anyway I never glimpsed that leopared which obviously was more calculated than I was. ,but I photographed its foot prints and its kill.
Leopards in our hills are smaller in size but super charged and master of camoflage.
It was great experiance....

Leo sorry, I wasn't all that clear with my post. They were all different leopards. The stand off with the croc's involved two leopards and about 10 croc's...the croc's won! One thing of interest, the guide the doco makers were using said the more people are mauled in the park by the sloth bears than the leopards.

Bakes