Namibia is famous for its cheetahs. According to the best estimates available, almost 20% of the world's cheetahs live in Namibia. But their future is uncertain.
Cheetahs once roamed throughout much of the world, but these days they suffer from many problems, not just in Namibia, but everywhere that they still exist.
First, there are already too few, and there have been for a long time. Basically every cheetah is mating with its cousin. There isn’t enough DNA to go around. This leads to birth defects, fragile immune systems and a high mortality rate in the young.
Second, cheetahs don’t defend themselves well. When confronted by another predator, they run away. They won’t even defend their kills. The cheetah is too fragile an animal to chance an encounter with another predator. They need perfect health to give them their speed and their livelihood. This means that they do not do well in national preserves and game parks. Other predators overrun them (African Wild Dogs suffer the same fate).
Third, cheetahs have had a hard time with the encroachment of a type of thorn bush. It makes it hard for the cats to see their prey, and harder still to get up to speed to run down their food. What’s the use of being the fastest if you have nowhere to run?
And then of course, there are humans. Whenever we come into conflict with cheetahs, they tend to die.
Oddly enough, it’s the latter problem that may be the easiest to fix.
The Cheetah Conservation Fund, a worldwide organization started in Namibia, is working hard to educate farmers about practices that will allow the farmers and cheetahs to co-exist peacefully. Because cheetahs do not thrive in game parks, most of Namibia’s cheetahs are living secretly on farms throughout the country.
Many farms in Namibia have both livestock and wild game. The range of the farm is too big to exclude wildlife, many of which can simply jump the fences anyway. A cheetah can’t tell the difference between a goat and an impala – they’re both food. But a farmer sure knows the difference and doesn’t take kindly to the lost of livestock.
One solution that allows the cheetahs to co-exist with the farmers is dogs. Some breeds of dogs can be trained from birth to bond with a flock of goats or other “small stock.” The dogs defend the herd diligently, keeping the cheetahs at bay, ensuring that they only hunt game animals. Likewise, donkeys won’t allow predators to attack cattle.
I had a chance to visit the Cheetah Conservation Fund in their home base in the heart of Namibia. CCF has a substantial research and education centre forty-plus kilometres down a dirt track, outside of Otjiwarongo, one of the larger towns in central Namibia.
You will definitely see cheetahs there. Chewbakka, an older cat, has acted as an ambassador for the CCF for many years. A 10-month old cub, Little C, is being groomed as his replacement. Little C is young enough to still have his baby fur on the back of his neck. The day that I visited, three other cheetahs, Ron, Harry and Hermoine, were also in the local pens, and we watched all five of these cats get fed.
If you time your visit right, you can see the cheetahs running. As part of their daily exercise regime, they are taken to a field that has a series of rag bundles and motors. The bundles are pulled across the open grass at a high rate of speed, and the cheetahs instinctively chase it.
As well as education, CCF does a lot of rehabilitation work, and has large sanctuaries for cheetahs that can’t be re-released for whatever reason (many have had too much contact with humans to ever live wild, some have suffered from injuries that would lead to their starvation without human assistance.).
While we were there, a cheetah was brought in for an examination. This cat had gotten her back left paw caught in a trap. To escape the trap, she had sacrificed a toe. The professionals and volunteers at CCF are taking care of her, and her one-year old cub. The mother was brought in for a checkup, her wound dressing changed and a general state-of-health taken.
Until recently, little was known about cheetahs, except that they were revered in many cultures.There are some things that everyone thinks they know about cheetahs that might not be true. They are the fastest animal alive. And it’s true that they cannot retract their claws. But some other “truths” about cheetahs aren’t true at all. Despite popular belief, they can climb trees, in a limited form. They won’t ever do it as well as a leopard, but they do have the ability. Also, they can purr – Little C purrs very loudly.
