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Published: April 1st 2009
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My view!
I step out onto my porch in the morning, and this is what is presented to me. It doesn't get much better. I’m on the road to Windhoek as I type these words. In the horse trailer behind me are two wooden crates, each containing a lovely young cheetah. We are all three en-route to the NamibRand Nature Reserve (NRNR) on the boundaries of the Namib-Nauklaft National Park. UK readers may recognise this reserve as the one featured in the Channel 5 documentary “Cheetah Man” that aired a few weeks ago. That programme showed the release of a coalition of five male cheetahs into the reserve, today is the first step in a process to release these two females.
Since “Cheetah Man” aired, the release has been proved an unqualified success. CCF and NRNR staff carrying out intensive monitoring have witnessed the five boys making many successful hunts and have also tracked them to additional kill sites. A similar process will be followed with the girls, who will initially be released into a fenced enclosure to allow them to get used to their new environment.
Although this will be my first visit to the NRNR I have been tracking the boys progress on a daily basis for months via the satellite collar carried by one member of the group. The collar
The Boys
These are Kia, Ra, Mushara, Lindt and Cadbury, the stars of the "Cheetah Man" documentary, and five very successful cheetahs. records GPS positional data at frequent intervals during the day and then uploads it to another satellite for transmission back to us. I process the data and then produce colourful GIS maps using my own shell script that are them displayed on the CCF website and sent to all involved parties. Coupled with the reports from our field staff, it makes for a fascinating story.
I’m very excited now to be able to see the place with my own eyes, and will write more after I arrive.
NamibRand is truly beautiful. The guesthouse at the Reserve HQ, opens straight onto the rolling savanna, without a fence in sight. In the distance, rise the encircling mountains with their rich red and purple hues. This is perfect cheetah country and wild game abounds. Whatever direction I cast my eye towards, reveals herds of free-ranging game. There are antelopes such as the Hartebeest, Oryx, and Springbuck, huge herds (flocks) of Ostrich, Zebra (both plains and the far rarer mountain varieties) and a stunning array of birds. Just yesterday I saw a pair of pygmy falcons - which I am told are very rare and hard to spot.
The release of
Radio tracking
This is what we spend a great deal of our time doing here... tracking the boys. Sometimes they're easy to find, other times not so much. There is always something new to see though. Tisha and Shanti into their new enclosure went very smoothly. As soon as the boxes were opened, the two girls shot out like champagne corks and raced into the bushes. Sometimes cheetahs become so comfortable with the travelling boxes that it is a struggle to get them to leave, but although these two had behaved perfectly on the long journey down, they were clearly happy to get back out. Once we were sure the girls were settled, we headed off to radio-track the five boys.
Ra, Kia, Lindt, Cadbury and Mushara were released into the NamibRand Nature Reserve in a joint operation with the Cheetah Conservation Fund, Amani Lodge (the cats’ home for the past four years) and the Ministry of Environment and Tourism. Since that time, CCF staff have monitored their progress on a daily basis. Today I saw them for the first time.
We found them to the east of our camp, and sat watching from several hundred metres away, as they in turn watched us. After a little while they decided on a closer look and started strolling through the long grass towards us. They are a magnificent group and it was amazing to see them so very much in their element as they approached. Within a few minutes they’d reached he vehicle and settled down around it. We had meat in the back, but they were not interested in that, having recently fed very well on a couple of hartebeest. They all know the vehicle very well, since it is this one that has followed them for the last few months, but once they’d checked us out, they seemed content to rest once more - still arrayed around us. We stayed with them for quite a while as I snapped photos for CCF and myself, and started to familiarise myself with individual traits. I won’t have time to learn who’s who properly, but I am starting to know them as more than simply names on a page and numerical collar-IDs.
The following day we found ourselves invited along to see a health and nutrition seminar being given to staff at one of the lodges in the reserve. It was an interesting talk, very well presented and a lot clearer than much of the nutritional information peddled in the UK. The organisation behind it works with lodge staff up and down Africa, motivating them to eat more healthily, to grow their own vegetables, and to participate in inter-camp soccer matches. There was also an interesting collection of tips on how to use locally grown herbs for medicinal purposes.
The names of the two people giving the talk (David Patient and Neil Orr) meant absolutely nothing to us, but according to a tourist we met later that day (while showing them the cheetahs), they are celebrities of some sort. Doesn’t bother me either way, but they seemed to be doing good work.
Come the afternoon we were back out tracking cheetahs - something I could happily do every day - and watched them flirting through the fence with a pair of older females (Rosy and Misty) that are also housed here.
I’m going to be in NamibRand for another couple of days, but even if it were to be another couple of months, I don’t think it would be long enough.
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Sarah
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I love reading all your updates Rob. You're amazing for doing what you do. xs