While our two female cheetahs are preparing themselves for a new, bright future in Madikwe, the world's fastest land mammal is racing against extinction. "Help us win the race" is the message for International Cheetah Day from the “Cheetah Conservation Fund”. A few thoughts around the cheetah project in Madikwe.

"We are probably at the beginning of a new era for Madikwe", this is the hope of Rhulani's owner Rolf, referring to the soon release of two female cheetahs into the reserve. It is hoped that these small carnivores can withstand all hazards and threats to eventually produce beautiful cubs later in 2015.

Although past attempts to establish a self-sustaining cheetah population in Madikwe have failed, Peter Leitner, Regional Manager from Madikwe Cluster Protected Area Management, is quite confident that this time, the project will succeed. “Five of the six males that were introduced two years ago still remain, and the two females we brought in from Lalibela Game Reserve were born and raised in a lion environment”, verifies Leitner his confidences.
“The two sisters were offspring to a female that has successfully raised a number of young on the same property and this experience of dodging lions was hopefully passed onto her cubs.”

In fact, lions are maybe the biggest danger to a cheetah, however there are also other predators that can also endanger these cheetahs, leopards, hyenas and African wild dogs. “Most of these creatures do not make a habit of attacking cheetahs, the adults are of course very fast, but they will attack them as a target of opportunity to steal their kills or to remove them as one more competitor from the savanna”, said Rhulani’s manager Chris.

 
For this ambitious project, this scenario would be a bitter pill to swallow, but Rolf says: "I still prefer that Mother Nature carries the fate in the hands and not humans.” Indeed, the greatest danger to a cheetah is human encroachment on the territory that they and their prey live on.
 
Also key to maintaining a cheetah population will be to manage the lion population density. “As we have all seen in Madikwe, when the lion number rises, there is a marked decrease in sightings of especially small mammals and other predators. This is neither good for conservation or tourism”, says Leitner.
 
Madikwe management and the Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT) are collaborating closely to ensure that best practice in cheetah management is applied. Madikwe is now regarded as the 5th most important meta-population with regards to cheetahs out of the 50 reserves with cheetahs in the country. According to Vincent van der Merwe (EWT cheetah meta-population coordinator), South Africa is the only country that has seen considerable growth in cheetah numbers worldwide and is currently home to the 3rd largest wild cheetah population after Namibia and Botswana.
 
We can thus say cautiously that the prospects for a great future looks promising. The two cheetahs were born in July 2013 and therefore 16 months old. “Female Cheetah normally start breeding around the age of 27 months so if all goes well we can anticipate offspring towards the latter part of 2015”, says Leitner.
 
We wish our two cheetahs a wonderful #Internationalcheetahday and we will keep our followers updated about the #rhulanicheetah project.