Date:  26 July 2010

Observer: Russell Crossey

We had the most incredible cheetah experience on 26 July.

It began with lions calling around camp at dawn. We headed out hoping to find the two big pride males. Just after leaving camp we spotted an adult female cheetah and her small cub. The cub was very small and still had its honey badger-like pelage – just a few months old. This mimicry of the honey badger is thought to make potential predators confuse the helpless cub with a pugnacious badger.  The cub was full of fun and energy and charged back and forth, ambushing its mother. It could barely contain its excitement on the perfect Kalahari winter’s morning.

The sleek, waspish waist of the adult cheetah indicated that she was hungry.  She walked up a slight ridge and froze. The baby immediately took its cue and vanished from sight. A springbok ram was grazing contentedly about 50 metres to the north and on the downwind side.  The cheetah exploded from the cover of a small bush and stormed at the unsuspecting antelope.  The chase was over in seconds and when the dust settled, the cat had her jaws firmly clamped on the springbok’s throat while its limbs thrashed in vain. This all happened in the middle of a vast plain, not more than 50 metres from our vehicles.

Once the cheetah had suffocated the ram, she began the laborious task of dragging it toward the nearest cover – a small green shepherd’s bush about 40 metres away. She was very alert and kept dropping the carcass and scanning the surroundings. About ten metres from the bush she found herself besieged by a trio of shrieking pied crows. She dropped the carcass and retreated to the bush and kept a close eye on proceedings.

When nothing appeared as a result of the crows’ alarming, she began calling the cub with a high-pitched bird-like sound. The cub came running across the plain to join its mother. It was at least an hour before the female was satisfied that the coast was clear. She returned to drag the carcass to the bush and the two fed for the rest of the day.

The dawn was greeted by a cacophony of excited jackal calls alerting us to the fact that the carcass had been discovered by other predators. We arrived just in time to see a leopard leaving the scene – apparently he had appropriated the carcass sometime that night.

The excitement was tangible on Kulala Wilderness Reserve when two male cheetah arrived at Kulala Desert Lodge on the afternoon of the 27th of June 2010.  The two were translocated from the commercial farmland area of Witvlei and had been kept at N/a’an ku sê Wildlife Sanctuary for three weeks. They are both estimated about four years old, in the prime of their lives, weighing around 50kg each.

A film crew from Carte Blanche (South African current affairs investigative series) also spent the night at Kulala Desert Lodge to film the release.  In the early hours of the following morning the Carte Blanche Team together with Rudie and Marlice van Vuuren, the owners of N/a’an ku sê, visited the famous red dunes of Sossusvlei, which served as a backdrop to part of the release documentary as well as putting the nearby location of Kulala Wildernes Reserve into context.  Each of the three camps on the reserve were allowed to have one vehicle present at the release site, so as not to overwhelm the cheetah, but allowing for heightened awareness and education to all camp staff ranging from housekeepers to waiters, guides and camp managers.

The release cage with its precious cargo was brought to the designated spot on the back of a Land Rover and set down about 30m from the side of the road. Marlice warned that everyone should be ready with their cameras because once the cage door is lifted the cats usually rush out one after the other as quickly as possible.  The two cheetah seemed comfortable in their cage however and had no plans of leaving it!  After much prompting and trying different ideas the males eventually left the cage and sauntered off towards the cover of the dry Tsauchab riverbed. Radio collars were also fitted to help monitor their movements.

This is not the first time that cheetah have been released on Kulala Wilderness Reserve – another two (male and female) were released in May 2009. Spotted hyaena unfortunately killed the female in June of the same year. It is hoped that this latest release attempt will add further to the carnivore diversity of the Reserve and the greater Namib Naukluft area. Once an area of subsistence goat farming, it is a privilege to be able to provide safe refuge in the rehabilitated arid ecosystem of Kulala for such rare and beautiful creatures.

Browse our RSS feed page and sign up for the most up to date news as it breaks.

More about Kulala Desert Lodge