Plans are now well underway for the re-release of our eight cheetah cubs - our group of three, Caeser, Milo and Co-Co, were transported to NamibRand in May and are already settling into their “soft” release temporary camp.
As we mentioned in our last update, as these three are still relatively young we will be re-releasing them gradually by keeping them in a temporary camp for a few weeks to enable them to get a feel for the area and become acclimatised. It’ll also allow us to monitor them more closely.
We were delighted that the move went very smoothly. We set box traps in the camp of 10 cheetahs and were fortunate that Caeser and Milo entered them of their own accord. The female cub was a little more stubborn and Rudie had to dart her in order to remove her from the camp.
It was all hands on deck as the staff and volunteers joined Rudie and Marlice as they identified Co-Co from the other cheetah cubs, quickly darted her to make her fall asleep and then carried her to the trailer cage which would re-locate her and her two brothers to NamibRand.
Our three gorgeous cheetah cubs are also going to become TV stars as their release into the wild is going to be filmed for a popular South African documentary programme, Carte Blanch. The film crew will attend the release and use our cubs in their documentary to show the process of re-releasing cheetahs into the wild. We’re all very excited that our cheetahs were chosen to appear in this documentary and it just shows how very they are.
We still need to raise the funds needed for the cheetahs radio collars for tracking after their release. Please email donationsnaankuse@iway.na if you would like to sponsor a collar and help their release back to the wild. You will then receive regular updates on their movements and activity.
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