Cheetah
Cheetah
At Etosha you approach a parked car with caution: it indicates an interesting animal nearby. I was driving from Salvadora to Charitsaub when I saw three or four vehicles parked on the road ahead of me. The silhouette of the cheetah was easy to spot in the flat terrain.
The cheetah was some distance away. This photo was taken with a 500mm lens.
I watched this cheetah for nearly two hours. He sat up. He lay down. He stood up. He wandered around for a few metres. He lay down again. Even though a large group of springbok was less than a kilometre away, the cheetah didn’t seem to be interested in them.
I saw cheetah again at Okonjima. But the two experiences were very different. Here at Etosha I saw a wild animal eyeing off a group of tasty springbok, albeit at a considerable distance. At Okonjima, I saw cheetah that are habituated to people, fed by hand up close.
Etosha National Park, Namibia. June 2001
Cheetah at Okonjima
Isn’t it cute. But it’s a cheetah, the fastest animal on earth. I saw this one at Okonjima, Namibia.
Okonjima is a luxury lodge several hours north of Windhoek, the capital of Namibia. It is the home of Africat, a foundation that takes care of deserted and injured cats: leopards, cheetah, lions and caracal (lynx).
Okonjima, Namibia. 4 July 2001.
What’s the difference between a leopard and a cheetah?
When I was at Okonjima Lodge, I learned about some of the differences between leopards and cheetah.
Leopard at Okonjima
Cheetah at Okonjima
- Leopards have rosette-shaped spots. Cheetah have solid round, or oval, spots.
- Leopards have no “tear” line. Cheetah have a black “tear” line running from the inside of the eye to the mouth.
- Leopard are bulkier and stronger. Cheetah are lighter, but taller, than leopard.
- Leopard have a familiar “cat” shape. Cheetah are lankier than the “cat” shape.
- Leopard hunt at night. Cheetah hunt during the day.
- Leopard like to drag prey up trees. Cheetah prefer grassy plains.
- Leopard rely on stealth. Cheetah rely on speed (up to 115km/hr) over short distances. They are the world’s fastest animal.
- Leopard have strong teeth and jaws and can crunch through thick bones. Cheetah have smaller teeth and jaws, leaving a larger nasal cavity for rapid breathing. They cannot crunch large bones.
- Leopard walk using their legs diagonally (left front, back right etc). Cheetah pace: they walk moving two left legs, then two right legs. (I became fascinated identifying which animals walk in which way and at Etosha National Park I observed that giraffe and gemsbok pace, too.)
Okonjima, Namibia. 4 July 2001.
Cheetah
There are maybe 10,000 cheetah left in the world. More than a quarter of those are in Namibia. But cheetah take young calves, so they are at risk from Namibian cattle farmers for whom cheetah are a significant pest.
In 1993, Lise Hanssen founded the Africat foundation, housed at Okonjima. Africat works with farmers to develop ways to prevent stock losses without having to cull cheetah and other cats.
Africat rescues and rehabilitates cheetah, leopard, lion and caracals (lynx). The visitor gets to see some of all these animals.
This cheetah lost its mother in a car accident. He is too much habituated to humans to be able to live and hunt successfully in the wild. So he is kept at Okonjima along with two siblings and another brother-and-sister pair, and fed twice daily.
This is Deke, a cheetah born at Africat in 1994. He lost part of his right ear to a haemotoma when he was four months old. In addition, he was wearing a bandage on one foot after a cut got infected.
Here, the cheetah is on the hood of the jeep, and Grant has a large basin of titbits of meat.
These cheetah are fed fresh meat twice daily. Africat brings up cheetah kittens on meat and, of all things, Iams cat food!
Iams has sponsored Africat by providing food and raising funds.
Grant talks to visitors while the cheetah eyes off the remaining titbits in the bowl.
Okonjima, Namibia. 4 July 2001.