Sad news reaches us just one day before Christmas. One of the two cheetah brothers from the so-called “Phinda Coalition” was found lifeless. The surviving cheetah had spent his entire life with his brother and is now all alone. A little eulogy to a wonderful cat who delighted us and our guests with great sightings for seven and a half years.

Captain Redbeard Alasdair is very sad this Christmas Day. From the first day the brothers were released from the Tau Dam Picnic Boma into the Madikwe Reserve until today, Alasdair has followed their paths, observed them and learned to love them. 

“The cheetah had a large hole in its body,” he says, “so it is possible that it died in an encounter with a rhinoceros.” But these are just speculations. There were also scratches that could have come from a lion.

The Phinda brothers were released into the Madikwe Game Reserve over the Easter weekend at the end of March 2017. The two got their name because they came from the “Phinda Game Reserve”. They quickly settled in and felt at home in the 75,000 hectares of Madikwe.

The two cheetahs were the foundation for the reserve's ambitious goal of creating a place for the sustainable reproduction of cheetahs. This had never worked before. Rhulani's owner Rolf remembers that a coalition of four cheetah brothers previously lived in the reserve and that they killed a female the first time they encountered her.
 
The moment when the Phinda males finally went on honeymoon with the female was unforgettable. That was exactly one years later, in May 2018. But it took another two years until the first little cheetahs could finally be admired in Madikwe. These were born in the middle of the lockdown, without stress and without tourists.

On his last trip in mid-December, Rolf was lucky enough to accidentally meet the two cheetahs, which had also become dear to him. He was able to take the last photo of them relaxing next to each other and looking out over the savannah.

Alasdair says: "We don't know what will happen to the brother, which is now alone. He is fast and still strong enough, but male cheetahs typically live in coalitions and are stronger together."

We definitely wish him good luck!