Cheetah Conservation Fund

Category: Cheetah - General, Cheetah - Research | Date: May 07 2009 | By: cheetahconservation

The boys again ranged towards the mountains a few days ago, but fortunately the lure of the girls seems to be continuing to hold their interest and after scaring our observers for a few hours, they returned to the pens.   Close to the park HQ/farmhouse they made a pretty spectacular kill, although alas it was overnight and no one witnessed it.  The following morning however it rapidly became clear that they’d finally managed to bring down their long sought-after zebra!  A young one, but nonetheless an impressive achievement.  They were Very fat after that for several days.

As April turned into May, they made a hunting trip back out onto the pan once more.  It is a good place to hunt at the moment, with very large herds of game available and it is a nice long way away from any of the park boundaries.  The only catch they appeared to have made however was a springbok, but nonetheless it will keep them going.

On the female front, Tisha and shanti are both starting to show interest in the boys.  They are not yet approaching the fence-line, but they clearly are aware of the boys movements, and are often to be found watching them intently.  They both seem a lot more comfortable now that they are in the big 50 ha pen.

            Rob

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Category: Cheetah - General, Cheetah - Research | Date: Apr 24 2009 | By: cheetahconservation

All 47 cheetahs! Read about it at http://www.cheetah.org/?nd=2009_cheetah_workups_pr. Patricia

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Category: Cheetah - General | Date: Apr 19 2009 | By: cheetahconservation

Learn what we have been doing through 2008. Our full-color annual report is now available at http://www.cheetah.org/?nd=progress_reports. Patricia

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Category: Cheetah - General, Cheetah - Research | Date: Apr 08 2009 | By: cheetahconservation

Tuesday, 7 April, 2009.Well, the boys did almost next to nothing today. They may have eaten last night but I couldn’t see them well enough to determine for certain or not. I also gave Tisha and Shanti a day off of torment but will resume again tomorrow as I attempt to feed them again. But I have got a story for you.

A NamibRand Tuesday Morning Adventure

I awoke this morning with the sense that something different may happen today. You know you sometimes get that? Well, I wasn’t let down. Shortly after finding the boys in pretty much the same area I left them yesterday, Marcus, one of the workers from Keerweder pulled up alongside me in his Land Cruiser. In broken English and my limited Afrikaans, he told me he had been trying to reach me on the radio. I checked it and found out that someone had turned the volume all the way down. Must have been Andrea, the German student, last night. Marcus then explained he had seen two Cheetahs, un-collared, running along the fences just after the cattle grate between the Wolwedans road and Toekoms. If I wanted to catch them I’d have to hurry he says.

I hit the road fast, very fast, and gunned it up the road until the two were in sight. If they carried along this fence South like this, they would keep going until they reached farmland. Farmland of the unfriendly sort. I cut in front of them and they immediately stopped. One just lay in the grass and the other bolted back North. I got out and the second one took off North. Perfect. I just had to chase the back into the reserve and all would be lekker. Easy right? Not so much.

The first one was nothing but dust in the distance, She (I’ll explain later) made it to a river bed where the fence on the Eastern side was bust and went through, only to re-emerge a few minutes later and cut across to the other side where the fence is not jackal proof, and slipped through easily. One down. The other one would run for a hundred metres and then drop into the grass and hide. I would approach, clap my hands, shout and he would run off again. This went on four or five times until I approached once and he wouldn’t get up. I could tell he was tired and male, obviously scared but too tired to be chased further. Distressed I got a little closer to coax him up again, he ignored me and just lay there, head up looking at me and panting. I then saw that he had a silver CCF ear-tag and couldn’t be much older than a year and a half. They must be “Mom’s” cubs finally out on their own. They looked good but were going the wrong way. I didn’t know what to do so I radioed the warden. Waiting for him to arrive, I was watching the Male and looking out for signs of the female that had made it across to the reserve, just in case she came back for him.

Next, the worst possible thing happened. I was passed on the road by one of these HUGE overlanding tourist trucks. He started running South again at such a speed he was out of sight before I could even get back to the truck, let alone get the thing to start and turn it around. I went after him but the roadside turns into a ditch and even with Paul on the back we couldn’t find him. Mike, the warden, then called on the radio to ask if it was ok to approach and I turned around again. As soon as I did, I saw him come out of the bushes a couple of hundred metres back and cross over to the other side of the road. I started forward again, chasing him North once more, telling Mike to hold fast in case he got a fright again. I managed to get him down to the fence where his sister had gone through. He laid down again just shy of it and getting a little vexed by now, I jumped out of the car, had a quick chat with him and through the fence he went.

I met up with Mike and the other workers and we went back up the road to make sure that wasn’t his sister that had crossed through again. I was certain this wasn’t the case as I had taken good note of his tail colour and face. We saw no sign of any other Cheetahs and headed back, happy to have them back in the safety of the reserve.

I hope you enjoyed my story. I’m basically just putting off doing the dishes. Have a great evening and I’ll let you know if/when we come across them again. Thanks,

James

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Category: Cheetah - General, Cheetah - Research | Date: Apr 04 2009 | By: cheetahconservation

On March 30th we believe that the boys made a small kill, possibly a springbuck but have been unable to directly confirm this. Their behaviour suggests however that they are not presently hungry despite our not having witnessed a kill since the two Hartebeest back on March 24th.

On the 31st they headed out onto the pan, but did very little aside from sleeping out there before returning to the girls pen the following night. As April begins, they spent their morning courting the girls, although our latest additions (Shanti and Tisha) show no interest in coming down to the fence to greet them. That evening Mushara spots a group of zebra and starts stalking them, the others soon follow with Kia taking over leadership for the hunt. The zebra see them but don’t appear concerned, continuing to stroll towards a nearby waterhole. Close to the tail end of the herd, Kia and Ra go to ground, apparently waiting for the zebra to turn around and return to the pan, but Lindt loses patience and attempts to run one down with Cadbury and Mushara by his side. The zebra scattered and the three boys quickly gave up the attempt. Shortly thereafter all five boys returned to the girls pen.

Two days later they succeed with another kill, but as yet James has been unable to get close enough to identify it.

As regards the map, you may notice the purple line on the right of the picture. This is the reserve boundary, and will appear on all maps from now onwards.

Rob

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Category: Cheetah - General, Cheetah - Research | Date: Apr 01 2009 | By: cheetahconservation

As you can see from the attached map, the collared female is ranging very far to the West of the boys at the moment, almost out into the dunes of the Namib-Nauklaft desert. Interestingly, we received a report of a Springbok kill site in the vicinity of the rocks you can see under her latest data point. The site was seen from the air during a scenic flight, so no close examination was possible, but the assumption was made that it was a leopard kill as one is known to be in the area. Given her proximity to the site however, it seems more likely that she brought it down.

Rob

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Category: Cheetah - General, Cheetah - Research | Date: Apr 01 2009 | By: cheetahconservation

We have all our technical problems resolved now, although we are still trying to fill in a few holes in the data from mid-March. I’ve attached the current map, which takes us up to March 29th.

On March 28th, we added a new temptation for the boys, in the form of two new, younger, females; Tisha and Shanti. They are currently in the 2 ha pen, but will be moved in with Misty and rosy in the 50 ha pen in a couple of weeks time. Tisha has been fitted with a satellite collar, and Shanti with a simple radio collar. It is hoped that these two girls, currently about 2.5 yrs old, will be able to be released into NamibRand after approximately 2 months in the pens here. Currently they are very shy of people, and have also apparently not spent any time courting the boys, although they did watch them covertly this morning (April 1st) from the far corner of their enclosure.

Our boys are still spending most of their time either with Misty and Rosy, or lurking close to the fence and trying to attract them over. They have also started ranging Eastwards more often, although when we drove over there, they spotted us watching them (from about 1 km away) and strolled over for a look. On March 24th however, James made a very exciting discovery when he found the boys feeding from a pair of Hartebeest (a mother and calf). This means that for the first time, a second member of the group has made a kill! Up to now, all kills have been made by Kia. There is no way to know which of them brought down the second Hartebeest, but hopefully we’ll be able to witness them in action again in the future and see who else is getting involved.

Either way, this was a substantial feast, and should keep them fed for many days.

Rob

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Category: Cheetah - General, Cheetah - Research | Date: Mar 31 2009 | By: cheetahconservation

We want to thank everyone who has made donations to the Cheetah Conservation Fund through wildlifedirect.org. Every amount counts because we depend on your support to continue doing our job. We even have one donor who just reached a full year of monthly donations. Thank you so much, Haishin O! We hope you feel good knowing that your donations are helping cheetah conservation very significantly.

A quick word on the NamibRand cheetahs. I heard from Rob today. He is at NamibRand. Two other females have just been released there. He has promised to send more information as soon as he returns to CCF. The boys are doing great and apparently have been hunting successfully.

I also just posted a story about Finn, a scat-sniffing dog that will be helping us test cheetah census techniques in Namibia. Don’t miss it!

All the best,

Patricia Tricorache

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Category: Cheetah - General, Cheetah - Research | Date: Mar 31 2009 | By: cheetahconservation

We are very excited to announce that Finn, a dog specially trained to sniff cheetah scat, has been with us for almost a month and is doing extremely well.

Finn is a border collie raised and trained by Chris Bartos of the Philadelphia Zoo, who stayed with us for three weeks. She was sad to leave Finn behind, but she knows he will working hard as he joins our cheetah census team (photo, L-R, with John Hunter, Isha, Chris Bartos, Finn and Anne Schmidt-Küntzel). He was rescued from Mid-Atlantic Border Collie by Chris, and has been trained to sniff out cheetah scat (poop) in Namibia so that cheetah movements can be tracked. Both Chris and Finn learned the tracking ropes at a detection-dog training program in Seattle. The location of the scat is recorded with a GPS device and is then collected. Geneticists analyze the samples to determine what the cheetahs have eaten and can extract DNA to identify individual cats, helping determine each cheetah’s range.

Given the secretive nature of cheetahs, indirect census techniques are likely to be the only viable method of collecting useful population information. Indirect censusing relies upon the detection of signs such as hair, spoor or scat (faeces) of the target species, and has been used effectively to gain population data for a wide range of species (Kohn et al., 1999; Smith et al., 2001; Warrick and Harris, 2001). The efficacy of these census techniques is, however, potentially limited by the ability of human searchers to find signs (a particular problem in Namibia’s thick thornbush habitat) and incorrect species identification after signs are located (Gese, 2001).

Search dogs have proved to be a highly effective tool in the development of such wildlife studies: They were reported as being four times as effective at finding fox scats as human searchers, and demonstrated a 100% correct species identification record (Smith et al., 2001; Shivik, 2002). The use of these dogs in field studies could be of immense benefit to cheetah researchers, but it is critical to first quantify and calibrate their efficacy through methodical trials so that this technique can be utilized to maximum effect in the field.

Finn will help us test the efficiency of search dogs in detecting cheetah scat, with the ultimate goal of using the abundance and occurrence of cheetah scat in the wild as an index of population density and distribution. Significant recent developments in the field of DNA analysis mean that scat samples can be effectively utilized to extract DNA and provide some estimate of population size in an area (Kohn et al., 1999; Taberlet et al., 2001). These data will prove invaluable in developing the most appropriate conservation strategies and management policies for cheetahs on Namibian farmlands.

This program is important because it will help us work to implement suitable conservation strategies which hinge upon developing reliable estimates of population status and trends. While we are trying to obtain grants from various foundations, we need to raise funds to achieve our goal of US$100,000. This total includes all aspects of this research, from staffing to equipment and supplies. Please consider making a donation to help Finn make this project a success.

Chris was recently interviewed by Public Radio International. Click here to listen.

Thanks!

Patricia Tricorache

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Category: Cheetah - General, Cheetah - Research | Date: Mar 04 2009 | By: cheetahconservation

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