CHEETAHS COME BACK TO ST. LUCIA

Robert Cross

Almost 100 years since cheetahs last walked in the Park, these elegant spotted cats are back.
Two adult males -- the first of a group of six -- were released into a special boma on the Eastern Shores on September 7, and are soon due to be released into the wild. The pair, captured in Limpopo Province, was flown to the 121 Battalion military airfield at St. Lucia and taken to the boma.
State-of-the-art translocation and release techniques were used to cause minimum stress to the animals, both fitted with radio-collars for monitoring by Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife.
Reports by hunters in the St. Lucia area in the 18th and 19th centuries, as well as skeletal remains, show cheetahs once lived here. Though no-one knows when the last one disappeared from St. Lucia, it seems likely that, after years of having been hunted for their skins, shot as vermin by farmers and been badly affected by their range land being transformed, it would have happened at about the time when increased human activities forced out the local elephants - another species recently been brought back to the Park.

 

CHEETAH FACT FILE

One of the most beautiful of all the big cats, cheetahs have spotted coats and a distinctive and unique black "tear-mark" which curve downwards from the inner corners of the eye to the corner of their mouths - and which should rule out any confusion with leopards which, in any case, are smaller,have more heavily built bodies and have markings arranged in rosettes over
most of the body. Cheetahs have long, slender legs and a lightly built body, with a long tail; all making it built for speed,
Cheetahs -- which were once also known as Hunting Leopards -- are the world's fastest mammal, able to hit a top speed of 112kms/hour over short distances when chasing prey, though they generally have to kill within the first 300 metres or so of the chase as they tire easily and have to give up.
The chase usually exhausts them but as soon as they have recovered, they feed rapidly to avoid being chased from their prey by other predators and even, it has been reported, vultures.
They originally occurred over most of Africa, except for the true deserts and forests, from the Cape to the Mediterranean, in the Middle East, east of the Caspian Sea and into India - where they were widespread until the middle of the last century when they became extinct in the wild. The name 'cheetah"
comes from India (and simply means "the spotted one) and it was here that these easily-tamed animals were trained to hunt by Indian princes, taught to run down gazelles and other game. The Egyptians revered them (where they
came to exemplify courage), and among the golden treasures found in the tomb
of the Pharaoh Tutankhamun, are some magnificent cheetah artefacts.
In the wild, cheetahs are generally solitary animals, usually only seen in pairs when mating or as a family group of a female with her cubs. An average litter consists of three to four cubs, born in the shelter of tall grass or undergrowth, and the cubs are frequently moved to new hiding places by the female to protect them from predators like lion and hyena, which kill and
eat the young. The cubs are born with a long, silver-gray mane which lasts for the first two or three months after which the ruff remains only along the top of their neck and shoulders. Most of the other big cats are able to roar, but the cheetah's vocalisations are restricted to sounds like a purr
and a chirp - sounding, rather surprisingly, like the call of a bird.