Hi, so right now I am doing my second volunteer project
with Volunteer Southern Africa and this is the Cheetah
Project. So I am going to show you all the things that
we get up to and what we do on this project.
Are you excited Sky?
So the two main goal of the Living With Cheetah program
is to: 1) breeding Cheetah to strengthen their gene
pool and 2) to raise them, teach them how to hunt
and release them back into the wild.
So the first thing we did was of course get to know the
cats. Now, not all the cats can be approached.
Several of the Cheetahs born at the project have been
born wild and are still wild, but others have been
hand reared, which means they were raised by human
touch, so they can be handled, pet and essentially
tamed. When he gets up, he is done and we don't force
him to to. He get one interaction per day.
This is Kiara and her brother Kenya over there. And they are
10 months old. And of this litter of 5, there are only
2 that we hand reared. How this process works
is that these little guys are now learning to hunt
and when they are old enough and are hunting well
enough, we release them with the other siblings
and they will eventually teach these siblings how to hunt
Now, these hunting skills are very important because
the only way a cheetah can be successfully released
back into the wild is if it knows how to hunt. Now
this is a step-by-step process that varies with age.
First, we start off with boxes, then we move into running
lores.
After that, we introduce them to the open field to get
them starting to chase and run after live prey.
However, our attempt at catching aerial shots of
cheetah hunting didn't go quite as planned, since they
they ended up being more fascinated with the drone
So right now it is 6 in the morning and we are getting
ready to take the big cheetah out on a hunt, so they
are going to be hunting for their food here on the game
reserve. Wish them luck. Just a heads up, slight
GRAPHIC WARNING. We are going to drive them to a
point where we think there is enough antelope, offload
the cats and walk them to a point. Then we are going to
release the harnesses and we are going to stalk, go
down to the ground, because there is no use us having
our heads up while they are stalking and we are walking
like a bunch of turds. We are going to go down. We
don't want the antelope to see us. We will watch.
As soon as they take off, we chase on foot. We run.
A very successful kill. I tried to run as fast as I could
but apparently running with cheetahs is very difficult
It's a learning curve and in about years time they will
be ready to be put back in the wild. As long as they
know how to hunt, we have to release them.
When we are not teaching cheetah how to hunt , we are
working with them in other stimulating ways like walks
Seriously, does she know what she is doing?
Just taking cheetah for a walk. It's cool.
And you lost a cheetah.
Also, cleaning up after them.
And not just the cheetah, there are other adorable
animals at the project. So here is a sole survivor of a
fire. Her entire family was killed. They generally have
long tails, he lost his. Aside from that, he
is very awesome. He looks for eagles very often
So pretty much Zulu and the Banded Mongoose Lulu
She is an escape artist of note. Zulu. That one is Lulu
When someone else is holding him. He can get a bit
zealous. Right now you are his property.
Hi Lulu.
So what we are about to do now is we are going to go
fetch Kira. She is our free run cheetah. The reason she
free runs is that she sadly can't be released. Now she
can't be released is because when she was 4 days old
her mother accidentally stepped on her and broke
both shoulders and an elbow.
Another awesome part of Living with Cheetah project
is the game drives on their private reserve.
So, at the waterfall we stopped at for lunch on
our game drive. Look at it.
I think some people are going swimming.
Very possible. Not me though. I don't think that is
going to happen. No, no.
Thank you for watching. If you enjoyed Living with
Cheetah programs give it a thumbs up. And if you
want to see the other program I did. Living with Big Cats
click on the video below.
And if you are not already, hit the subscribe button
so you are notified when my next video comes out
in a few days time. See you then. Bye