The Houston Zoo’s Conservation Director, Peter Riger has traveled to Botswana. Read about his experience with Cheetah Conservation Botswana.
May 2nd,
Our first thought once we set out this morning was that there is no way anyone would ever see a Cheetah chase down an Impala at 60mph here. There are no flat open spaces, everything is thorn-scrub, short acacias and 3-5ft. tall grasses. To hunt here, cheetahs have adapted to stalking their prey. The one thing Cheetahs have going for them here are there are more lions to compete with. Against them is the privately owned land, goat and cattle farms that stretch out and completely covering the landscape.
Cheetah Conservation Botswana is working closely with local farm holders to prevent conflict between wildlife and livestock which includes loss of cattle and goats to predators such as the cheetah. Other predators in the area include Leopards, Brown Hyena,Painted Dogs and Jackal.
Today was a fairly easy day checking camera traps on what they would call marking or scenting trees which the males use to mark their territories. Sounds simple enough except for there are almost no trees over 6-8ft. tall here and Cheetahs prefer the larger trees so they can get up in a lower branch and have a look around before leaving their urine and marks behind. The other issue is the 8 or so taller trees that are being used are all on private lands, accessible with permission of the landholders, and can be hours apart by car.
We managed to check 3 of these trees in 4-5 hours and sure enough there were cheetah photos on each of the camera and fresh cheetah marks and spraying only a few hours old on one tree. Other wildlife caught on camera included warthog, eland, kudu, and even the little seen African Wildcat which is quite small. Each of the cameras are checked once a month and cheetah photos compared to get an idea of how many males are moving through the different areas.
By, Peter Riger
Come back for more on Peter’s experience in Africa. If you have missed his previous posts about this trip click here or scroll down.
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