Archive for the ‘Cheetah - Research’ Category
It has been a long time since our last blog. We have been so busy! But finally, Dr. Laurie Marker’s most recent Field Notes are now available online by clicking here!.
Find out where Dr. Laurie Marker will be during her May trip to Europe and the US –where she will receive two prestigious awards, and read about her February travels in Cameroon and the U.S. Learn about our latest Run for the Cheetah success in Chicago with 700 runners, including CCF Namibia’s Senior Research Assistant Matti Nghikembua. So much is happening at CCF. We hope you enjoy the reading. Patricia
Following the regional meeting, a Botswana national workshop took place where the strategic regional goals were used to develop national goals and targets for long-term sustainability of these two species. Both the cheetah and wild dog have extremely large home ranges, live at low densities with the majority of their populations living outside protected areas, where conflict mitigation strategies must be employed. Due to the success of CCF’s long-term projects, many of these served as models for the strategic planning process. The workshop coincided with the publication of a special edition by the IUCN CAT Specialist Group on the Status and Conservation Needs of Cheetahs in Southern Africa. This publication is a result of the last regional cheetah meeting held at CCF in December 2005. Along with this special issue, a Cheetah Compendium was also launched on the CAT Specialist Group Website, which brings all current and historic knowledge together in one place. Both the website and the special cheetah issue were supported by CCF and will help everyone in their work to conserve the cheetah for the future.
Unfortunately we have experienced a setback that shows the realties we are dealing with. Two of our collared cats have died. The first was shot by a farmer who didn’t know whether it was a cheetah or leopard. This is the lack of knowledge that our education programs are meant to combat. On the positive side, upon visiting his farm to retrieve the collar we learned that he didn’t know much about the cats and is interested in attending our farmer training courses. It is great to meet receptive farmers and to know some good will come out of it. Sadly the second cat to die was Bob, a tailless male that we had seen in our camera surveys for the past few years. This year was the first to see him without his brother. While we do not know the fate of his brother we do know that Bob died of natural causes. He was found at a waterhole next to a warthog carcass. It appeared that the warthog injured him during the hunt.
Since then we have collared and released another male and await the fourth again. This magnificent dominant male weighing 54kgs received a complete medical workup that showed him to be healthy. We collected many samples and froze his sperm in our GRB. His release was a beautiful expression of the freedom and power of this most amazing champion of speed. We continue to check the traps twice a day with the help of our Earthwatch volunteers.
We have now collared cat number four and are currently downloading data from the first three. From these collars we hope to learn the habitat type the cats are using and also their daily movements and use of playtrees. We will also be comparing range size to a 10-year study already conducted at CCF to determine how prey and vegetation changes may have affected this. The pictures below show the collar which weighs 350 grams, and a GMS map showing the movement of one cat through neighbouring farms.
We have been asked why research on captive cheetah reproduction is important to the species, and furthermore, some people have asked us why the Cheetah Conservation Fund, which works to conserve the wild cheetah, would be involved in captive reproduction. Although saving habitat is our ultimate goal in saving the species, understanding all aspects of the cheetah’s biology and physiology is one of the very important pieces in saving the cheetah for future generations. In the world’s zoos, there is an abundance of older female cheetahs that carry valuable genes that are underrepresented in the gene pool. This research will help develop methods of impregnating the females and thus conserving their invaluable genes and infusing the captive population with much-needed genetic variation. This breakthrough in cheetah reproductive research has far reaching implications for the conservation of cheetah and demonstrates the benefits of an integrated approach of both captive and wild cheetah conservation programmes to ensure the survival of the species.
The oocytes (eggs) were recovered from some of CCF’s captive cheetahs, and inseminated with sperm in vitro (in the lab). During this procedure new culture systems were implemented to optimize embryo development. Embryos were assessed and the first ever cheetah embryos to reach the blastocyst stage was frozen for storage in the Cheetah Conservation Fund’s Genome Resource Bank, a reservoir of frozen genetic and biological materials. The oocytes (eggs) used to produce these historical embryos were collected from Nestlé and Hershey –two of CCF’s resident non-releasable cheetahs, of which four blastocysts were frozen. What makes this even more exciting is that the sperm used were collected over a year ago from a CCF’s resident male, Cruise, and had been frozen and stored in the Genome Resource Bank. This proves that the techniques researched at CCF to freeze and thaw cheetah sperm are viable. While in vitro fertilisation is relatively routine in many other species, including humans, carnivores have proven to be a challenge when it comes to assisted reproduction and pioneering methodologies need to be developed. In order to successfully grow cheetah embryos in vitro, the correct temperature, CO2 and growth mediums needed to be established that are very specific to cheetah embryos.
Part of our research includes estimating populations which is an important part of the conservation of an endangered species. A new population estimate is needed for Namibia and other range countries through a cost effective, repeatable and consistent method. The three methods being used here at CCF are spoor tracking, radio telemetry, and camera trapping. Spoor tracking data is collected weekly and consists of types of species, associated sample area, spoor direction and count of spoor. The species we are tracking include cheetah, leopard, and brown hyena. Over the last couple weeks we have collared 3 wild cheetahs from different range areas on our farms and are currently collecting data on their movements. This is CCF’s first time using GMS collars and will allow for a much more detailed data collection. All three are cheetahs that we have seen on this year’s camera census. One is a tailless male that we have seen in the previous year’s census, and he appears to be doing quite well despite the lack of a tail. We have 19 camera stations set up throughout our farms and in the month of July took 1400 photos, 92 of which were cheetahs. We are now in progress of identifying individuals from spot patterns and believe to have 8 cheetahs identified. Other than cheetahs we have seen brown hyena and leopard which we’ve also found through our spoor tracking. Both the spoor tracking and camera traps will continue through October. Today we were surprised to see a Leopard in one of the cage traps. He was a large male weighing in at 71kg! This was some unexpected excitement as we drove up to the check the trap. Our team did a medical workup in the field in order to collect biological samples and take measurements. We believe he is a male found on the cameras from the neighbouring farm. This gave us a great opportunity to learn more about the other predators on our farms. With one collar left we await the final cheetah and so check the cages throughout the day.
|
|
Learn about our latest batch of eight puppies donated to farmers, or the new puppy just arrived from Holland — Annual physicals were conducted in record time on all of CCF’s 47 non-releasable cheetahs while training two vets from the Kenya Wildlife Service — Two male cheetahs captured nearby contributed to the Cheetah Genome Bank — Farmers, schools, volunteers and visitors have kept us busy as we continue to teach them about cheetah conservation — and the capture of another cheetah and her cub gave us an opportunity to teach a Polytechnic group of agriculture students how one farmer’s failed predator control caused another livestock loss. So much has been going on !!!
