Cheetahs, Cheetahs, Everywhere

Hello! 

My name is McKenna Hancock, I am a junior Zoo and Conservation Science and Biology double major from Austin, Texas.  I am currently interning at the Cheetah Conservation Fund in Namibia. Cheetah Conservation Fund or CCF, is a facility that is working around the clock to try to save wild cheetahs from extinction. It serves not only as a place to educate visitors and others who come but also as a rehab facility for cheetahs that need a little help to get back to their normal lives in the wild. 

Currently when I am writing this, we have 36 cheetahs here, I know, that's a lot of cheetahs but some are currently being rehabilitated and some are permanent residents here, who are ambassadors for the education program. Our resident cheetahs live here because they were too young when they came here and do not have the basic skills they need to be a cheetah in the wild. The cheetahs that are permanent residents here help us to educate the public so they can be passionate and help us save them. 

We don't just have cheetahs at CCF, we also have Livestock Guarding dogs. These are dogs that we give (at a small fee) to farmers in the area that will protect their herd from predators, reducing the human wildlife conflict in the area. The waiting list for these dogs is very long, so when we have puppies, they go in with goats very quickly to get them used to livestock. We want them to care about the goats and the livestock more than they care about people. Then when they are old enough, we get them spayed and neutered, and send them to their farm homes. I was lucky enough to be able to sit in on the procedure of the puppies getting spayed and neutered. 

 

Alongside the dogs we also run a model farm here at CCF, we have goats and sheep to show the farmers how they can have their livestock and not harm wildlife. It is also where we develop and demonstrate our livestock managing techniques. As interns we go to check the goats twice a day to make sure they are free of injuries and sickness because a limping or sick goat looks like food to a predator. Doing goat checks every day you make friends with some of those goats. The little lady on the right is Dot and I love her. 

It is a very rare occasion when we get to watch something like the puppies getting fixed, usually my day consists of tasks, work on projects, or reading up on native species in Namibia. My tasks are broad and range from feeding dogs, to what we call center feeding.

Which starts with laying all the bowls out in a designated area so that the guests can look at the meat and learn a little about it in what we call a 'Meat Talk'.  It's where we discuss what the meat is (usually horse or donkey) the vitamins and minerals we put on it and why its in bowls (cheetahs are finicky). 

It’s funny however because when we lay out the meat, we tend to get hungry visitors like birds that will come take nibbles of the meat. Then we put the bowls of meat in the feed pen and then when we are safe and out of the enclosure, we let the cheetahs in to eat. It is an experience that the guests get to watch and take pictures of and I got to say it is very cool to be that close to a cheetah while it is eating, I don't think I’ll ever get used to it. 

There are also tasks where you help take care of the dogs that live here. Tasks with the dogs consist of feeding them cleaning their enclosures, putting fly spray on them, and of course dog walks. I have not been here very long but I may already have a favorite dog. His name is Bolt and he has personality for days, the photo on the left is a one I took of him right after we got back from a walk. He is very tired but also very happy. He will stay here at CCF for breeding purposes. 

There are quite a few tasks we do relating to the cheetahs; my personal favorite is Husbandry. We get to head to where they keep the releasable cheetahs, about a 10-minute drive away from the main building. This is so we can keep those cheetahs as wild as possible before we release them. For husbandry we feed them and run them to get their exercise, they are trained to chase the cheetah keeper truck. The cheetahs do their best to keep up with the truck and usually they beat it, after that we feed them. Usually we throw the meat over the fence and they grab it and run away. We also take care of the resident cheetahs we have in bigger enclosures for the safari experiences. Overall it is in my opinion one of the coolest tasks because you get the chance to see how cheetahs in the wild would act as well as see some of the resident cheetahs we don't get to see too often. 

Of course, there are the typical tasks that have you cleaning enclosures or feed pens, then there is the task that has you prepping the food for the cheetahs. Basically we take the big chunks of the meat that the butcher preps for us, we prep those by cutting off as much of the fat as we can and also making sure there are no bones that the cheetahs could choke on or get stuck in their teeth. After we are done usually there is a bucket that look somewhat like this just full of fully prepped meat. We have 36 mouths to feed, that is a lot of meat to prep every day, so as you can imagine it’s a long very busy task, but the cheetahs need to get fed. 

Overall, I have learned so much in the short time that I have been here, this internship is proving to be invaluable in prepping for my future career.  My next blog post will probably update much more on that project and not my daily tasks!