Cheetahs!* B&R

Boryan: Did you know that the cheetah is the fastest land animal on Earth? And that it’s top speed gets up to 110 km/hour or that a cheetah takes only three seconds to accelerate to it’s top speed?

Well, you might know more than me but these were the only facts that I knew about cheetahs  before I went to Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF).  CCF is located in Namibia near Otjiwarongo. Here I saw my first cheetah!

The reason there even is a conservation fund for cheetahs is because they are an endangered species. The world used to be populated with 100,000 cheetahs but now there is only 10,000. In Namibia the main cause for cheetahs dying is that they get shot by farmers trying to protect their cattle. CCF helps conserving cheetahs by educating farmers how to farm and herd in a way so they don’t have to keep killing cheetahs. CCF also takes in orphaned cheetahs, healing and releasing injured ones too.

The reason we went to CCF was to actually see the cheetahs feed, so at first I thought we would only see two cheetahs eating some meat and then we would leave. You can probably imagine my surprise when we walked into the compound and right of the bat I spot four cheetahs just lazing around their fenced in yards under the shade of a tree. As it turns out, there are about thirty seven cheetahs in the care if CCF! After we had a little picnic lunch a guide took us on a small tour around to see the funds dogs and their little model farm for educating farmers.

Out of our whole experience in the Cheetah Conservation Fund though, my favorite part was seeing the cheetahs feeding. We saw a total of twelve cheetahs being fed, six boys an six girls. First two girls were fed, then two more, after them four boys and finally two boys and two girls at the same time. The cheetahs in CCF are fed with horse and donkey meat, this is partly because these types of meats are leaner and keep the cheetahs in better shape and because CCF can’t get wild game for everyone of them.

After the Namibian government passed a law that people have to have a physical barrier between them and the cheetah, CCF started to feed their cheetahs by preparing the meat, getting out of the cage and then opening a gate on the other side of the cage with a pulley to let the cheetahs come in. The best part of the feeding was seeing the Cheetahs break through the gate in full sprint to get to their food. Then if one of the cheetahs wasn’t calm yet he/she would pick up the meat and walk around a little until they settle down to eat.

In the wild cheetahs will wolf down their kill as fast as they can so the other predators don’t have a chance to steal their food, but here in CCF the caretakers put a bone in each of the cheetahs pieces of meat so they slow down. As a result it took twenty minutes for them to finish eating. When the first of the four male cheetahs finished he got up and went to he youngest and tried to steel his meat! Eventually the thief succeeded and continued his meal.

In all though the the whole CCF cheetah experience was one of the best ones I have had in my life. We got to learn about cheetahs, see them feed and learn about the fund and all it’s good work!!!

Raina: We went to a place where the people save the cheetah a from going extinct. Since the farmers shoot the cheetahs so they can protect there livestock (sheep, goats and other animals.) and the people in the Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF) want to teach the farmers that they do not have to kill them. Instead the farmers can get a special breed of dogs that cheetahs are afraid of. And the dogs can protect the livestock or the farmers can call CCF and they can remove the cheetah to another farm where the farmers can handle the cheetah. If the farmers want to avoid the cheetah they should not take their animals out very early in the morning or very late in the evening.

The cheetahs I saw all had interesting stories of how they had arrived at the center. There was a museum that taught me all about the history and facts about the cheetahs. We also saw them being fed they first put the bowls with meat out and opened a gate with a string once everyone was out and the cheetahs ran in and started eating the meat from bowls like kitty cats!

I liked a lot what CCF were doing to save the cheetahs. And I didn’t want to leave…