The Cheetah Reintroduction Project in Namibia

The cheetah is arguably one of Africa’s most iconic species, conjuring images of dramatic high-speed chases across sweeping savannahs. Cheetahs hold the impressive record as the world’s fastest land mammal, capable of running at blistering speeds of up to 70 miles per hour. However, they are also fast disappearing from their historical range across Africa and parts of the Middle East.

It’s estimated that, within the last hundred years, the global population of wild cheetahs has reduced by almost 92 per cent due to unchecked hunting, illegal pet trading, habitat loss, and human–wildlife conflict. Now cheetahs inhabit only 10 per cent of their historical range and Namibia is home to the world’s largest wild population. Even today, habitat loss due to fragmentation of land into privately owned farms continues to drive wild cheetahs towards conflict with farmers.

Cheetahs are incredibly successful predators, with a kill success rate that’s almost double that of other big cats such as lions or leopards. In fact, it has been shown that, unlike other big cats who tend to take game sporadically and opportunistically as they patrol their territories, cheetahs will identify target populations that they can return to time and time again until the food source is depleted. In the wild, these target populations may take the form of calving herds of wildebeest, hartebeest, springbok, or impala, animals that have adapted to counter the threat from cheetah predation.

When wild land is converted into commercial farmland, the cheetah’s traditional prey species are replaced with domesticated livestock that stand little chance against these highly adapted and specialised hunters. The attrition rate is high, and the farmers often have little choice other than to defend their livelihoods. Those animals that survive reprisals from farmers are often left orphaned or severely injured and consequently must go through a lengthy process of rehabilitation or “re-wilding” before they can be deemed suitable for reintroduction to the wild. For most big cats, prolonged periods of captivity would render the idea of reintroducing them back into the wild impossible.

Interrupting the natural learning process of animals such as lions or leopards can put these animals at a severe disadvantage when it comes to their ability to hunt, find water, or defend themselves from other predators. Remarkably, cheetahs have a very different learning process, as they are actively taught survival skills by their mothers from a very young age all the way to adulthood and subsequent independence. This makes the process of re-wilding much easier since they can be actively taught and effectively ‘trained’ to survive in the wild, even if they have been in captivity from a young age.

During their rehabilitation at the Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF), the animals would be bonded into larger groups, or ‘coalitions’, that would allow them to learn from the experience of other members of the coalition. In turn, this bonding process led to much higher survival rates among re-wilded cheetahs.

First, it was important to assess the feasibility of releasing more predators onto the reserve. I did this by asking a few questions. Is there enough available prey? Are there already too many cheetahs or too much competition from other predators? Once the suitability of the area had been established and CCF had identified appropriate candidates for re-wilding, one of their reintroduction specialists would spend some time on the reserve looking for the optimal area in which to release the cheetahs. The key was to find an area that was close to abundant and topographically suitable hunting grounds, that had an ample water supply, and that was well away from areas with a high population density of lions, leopards, or hyenas.

All in all, the project was a huge success; and in the 5 years that I spent monitoring and habituating CCF cheetahs, a total of 14 cats was released onto the reserve. If you’d like to learn more about cheetah conservation, you can witness the success of projects like this yourself during a safari to Namibia. Take a look at some ideas and inspiration below: