Hi

My stay in California was successful. I stayed with former Earthwatch volunteers, Heidi and her daughter Emily, who were at CCF during 2007. They live on a beatiful farm with a vineyard in Woodside. We talked about vineyards alot. She has a smart partnership with the wine company, who are responsible for prunning and harvesting of the grapes. She has similar problems with birds as does CCF and drapes netting over the vines when the fruits are about to ripen.

I gave a brown bag talk at the San Fransisco Zoo for about 40 zoo docents and staff. They do not have cheetahs there but have other large cats such as tigers, lions, snow leopards and fishing cats. The participants were overwhelmingly interested in the
CCF presentation - lots of questions. My second presentation was at a pizza party in Palo Alto. This event was arranged by the Wildlife Conservation Network (WCN). Both Laurie’s parents were present. It was more of a cheetah family event since our main donors and supporters were present. I also had the opportunity to meet members of the CCF USA Board of Trustees.

I arrived safely in Phoenix, AZ Arizona and spent the afternoon helping David Bluestein (the Run for the Cheetah director) with setting up the course. On Friday, I will have a brown bag presentation at noon and a conference call with my team Jaguar.

Defenders of Wildlife has requested that we develop cheetah education materials for kids for their website before August.

I am participating in the Cheetah run on Saturday, 26 April. We are hoping for many runner! My flight back to Namibia will be on Sunday 27th.

Regards,

Matti

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