Today was all about the cheetahs, which is pretty much the reason why I chose to come to Namibia, home to the largest number of cheetahs.
Our group spent the morning looking at pictures from camera traps to identify the various animals that were snapped by the stealth camera. Since it's kind of a one-person job, I snuck off for a bit to visit the tame springbok in the yard (it has arthritis). She was in a makeshift enclosure to prevent the jackal from annoying her, and she had the sweetest eyes I've ever seen.
Some of the others snuck off to play with the kids from the onsite school.
And it turned out I wasn't the only one watching.
After muffin break, I rejoined my group to make a visit to the cheetah enclosure to set up traps so that two of them could be moved to a different enclosure. Those traps were heavy - I can't imagine how much heavier they must be with a full grown cheetah inside!
We used sticks to guard the people doing the heavy lifting, and the cheetahs came over quickly to investigate the traps as soon as we stepped away. We left the traps there for a few days for the cheetahs to get used to them, and they will probably be triggered in a few days.
We broke for a quick lunch and regrouped to clean the enclosure of a cheetah duo that are frequently used for photoshoots and movies.
We went in armed with yellow buckets to pick up any bones and poo that we came across.
They were a bit curious as to what we were doing and wandered over to investigate.
Maybe they were were grateful to their cleaners, since they both came over and we got to have a impromptu photoshoot with them. They are just so beautiful, and their purr sounds like an engine idling. It was beyond amazing!
We also visited Baloo, an eight year old cheetah who just recently arrived at the sanctuary.
We learned all about cheetah paw prints and how they can be used to identify each cheetah, much like fingerprints.
We tried to convince Baloo with some chunks of meat to get him to make tracks on the freshly raked dirt.
Cheetahs have a terrible sense of smell so the trick is to hold up a piece of meat and make sure he's got his eye on it by waving it from side to side before tossing it. Otherwise, he'll have a hard time finding it even if it's right below his nose.
He got a little snippy at times...
But the little hunks of meat definitely got his attention!
It was far and away my favourite day at Na'ankuse and the perfect way of ending my time at Na'ankuse! I couldn't wait for Neuras tomorrow!
Our group spent the morning looking at pictures from camera traps to identify the various animals that were snapped by the stealth camera. Since it's kind of a one-person job, I snuck off for a bit to visit the tame springbok in the yard (it has arthritis). She was in a makeshift enclosure to prevent the jackal from annoying her, and she had the sweetest eyes I've ever seen.
And it turned out I wasn't the only one watching.
Maybe they were were grateful to their cleaners, since they both came over and we got to have a impromptu photoshoot with them. They are just so beautiful, and their purr sounds like an engine idling. It was beyond amazing!
Cheetahs have a terrible sense of smell so the trick is to hold up a piece of meat and make sure he's got his eye on it by waving it from side to side before tossing it. Otherwise, he'll have a hard time finding it even if it's right below his nose.
It was far and away my favourite day at Na'ankuse and the perfect way of ending my time at Na'ankuse! I couldn't wait for Neuras tomorrow!
No comments:
Post a Comment