The tragic loss of a young female cheetah caught in a snare trap

On the morning of Sunday 12th June 2011 Marlice van Vuuren received a telephone call reporting a leopard caught in a snare near Brakwater, north of Windhoek, Namibia.

A team, including Marlice and her husband Dr Rudie van Vuuren, was immediately dispatched to attend the scene, assess the condition & welfare of the animal and, if necessary, bring it back to the sanctuary for further examination and/or recuperation.

Upon arrival, it was discovered that it was not a leopard, but a young female cheetah no more than about 2 years old. She had tried to pass under the bottom wire of the fence and become trapped in a snare which had encircled her waist, just in front of her hips. So tightly was she entangled that her inevitable struggles resulted in her back being broken in the lumbar region of the spine. The injuries caused by the snare, in conjunction with the stress, shock and dehydration she would undoubtedly have suffered, resulted in her death long before the team from N/a’an ku sê arrived.

The scene was photographed from all angles to properly document the incident. The young cheetah was then cut free from the snare and brought to N/a’an ku sê where it will be examined by researchers to further the scientific knowledge about this extraordinary cat.

Lightning's Success Story

In December 2009, we released one of our young leopards, Lightning, on Wilderness Safari’s Little Kulala reserve.

On Saturday 23 April this year Rudie received a phone call from Johan Steyn of Tsauchab River Camp regarding a leopard with a radio collar which he and his guests have seen regularly at Tsauchab. Rudie knew immediately that it was Lightning. Her radio collar had stopped giving out signals in January this year so all of the N/a an ku sê team were very excited to hear that, after 15 months of freedom, Lightning had been seen and that she is in good health and there is no conflict with the farmers in that area.

It is fantastic to know that Lightning can add value to Johan Steyn’s tourism market. It is a very good example of how tourism and conservation can work together and we now send all information about Lightning to Johan so that he can share it with his guests.

Opening of a new Conservation and Tourism Centre in Solitaire

Our new site will be a 500-hectare reserve and will accommodate injured and sick cheetahs with the view of releasing them back into the wild. Cheetahs that have come into conflict with humans but are not livestock killers will be part of the reintroduction program. 

The Centre will host an educational facility that is open to the public and offer display information and seminar talks about our Conservation Research Program. Tourists will also be able to join  our group of elite biologists to assist in wildlife activities such as feeding the animals, wildlife-tracking within the purpose-built enclosures, nature walks on and around the farm, and carnivore surveillance in the greater Namib area. 

To find out more about volunteering at either our Namibrand site or our new Solitaire site please contact volunteer@naankuse.com

Naankuse's New Camera Traps

N/a’an ku sê are very grateful for the sponsorship of our new and very exciting camera traps. The first few have been set up around the Windhoek study area in locations where regular activity has been recorded previously, e.g. in riverbeds for leopards, at marking trees for cheetahs and at water holes.

Conservation Research Team update - Sept 10

The research team and its volunteers have been extremely busy with a number of different predator cases over the past few months. Our new Land Rover has been worth its weight in gold allowing the research team to respond to all of these cases, picking up threatened carnivores and transporting them to the safety of N/a’an ku sê and then onto safe release sites. Below are just a few examples from the last three months:

Two cheetah capture & release - June 2010

N/a’an ku sê’s Director and renowned conservationist, Marlice van Vuuren, and N/a’an ku sê’s research biologist, Florian Weise recently collected two male cheetah from a farm in the East of Namibia. They were released just a few weeks later into the safety the beautiful Kulala Nature Reserve in the South of Namibia. Our resident film maker, Gus was lucky enough to go on both trips and tells us about the release…

Cheetah Soft Release in NamibRand, May 2010

In May 2010, three of our eight cheetah cubs started their journey back to the wild with a soft release in a specially made enclosure near our research base in NamibRand Nature Reserve. Here, volunteer Keith smith writes about their journey....