Rescuing a Cheetah Cub

Just before Christmas Shutdown we had a bit of a stressful time with our favourite cheetah family. Research Assistant, Nico, found the foursome on the Northern Fenceline but when the family got up and got on the move it became immediately apparent that the male cheetah cub was unable to put any weight on his front left leg and struggling to keep up with the rest of the family. Fearing a broken leg, the Reserve Manager, Simon, called our local Wildlife Vet, asking him to come take a look. Whilst we waited for the vet to arrive GVI staff and volunteers took turns to follow the cheetah to keep track of them. It was quite distressing to watch as Ketswiri (the mother) was continuously on the move, looking for something to eat, and the little injured cub was lagging further and further behind. Whenever the family did stop he would just collapse to the ground and not move again until his mother was nearly out of sight again when he would drag himself to his three good legs and bunny hop after her. His sisters were torn between staying with him and following their mother.  Over the few hours that we followed them they covered close to two kilometres and crossed the flowing Makutsi River, and the little cub was deteriorating with every step.

After a few hours, in the intense afternoon heat, the little cub collapsed under a raisin bush and did not look like he was going to get up again. His mother was now out of sight and the sisters halfway between the two. But just then we heard the telltale sound of Ketswiri on the hunt, her thundering footsteps and alarm-calling from impala. Moments later we heard Ketswiri making her “come here” call to the cubs, which sounds more like a Velociraptor than something that would be made by a cheetah. The sisters immediately ran in the direction of the call and we waited with baited breath to see whether the little boy would get up. It was a great relief when we watched him stir and slowly make his way over to his family, and it was an even greater relief for us to see that Ketswiri had been successful in bringing down an impala. It was only a tiny baby impala and would not fill the family up, but it would at least mean that they would stay still for a few hours, the timing had been critical for the now exhausted cub that was literally on his last legs.

We watched for another hour while the two sisters tucked greedily in, even slapping their own mother when she tried to grab a morsel. Sadly though the little male cub did not have the energy to eat and just lay in a heap next to his mother. Fortunately the vet arrived while they were still eating.

The cheetah family is so habituated to our presence with them on foot that it was surprisingly easy and stress-free darting the cub and removing him from his family, Ketswiri barely battered an eyelid. Whilst it is impossible for us to know what was going through her head, no one can deny how much this completely wild cheetah trusts us, even with her cubs, something that I still find truly remarkable.

We gently lay the now asleep cub on the tailgate of the bakkie for the vet to examine, Ketswiri and the two sisters just sitting calmly watching five metres away.  The vet advised that he couldn’t feel a break but could see the elbow joint was very swollen so made the difficult decision to take him back to his clinic for xrays and a proper examination. At this point we had no way of knowing what the result would be and therefore what the future would hold for this little cub.

In the morning the vet contacted us to advise that the leg was not broken and it was just an abscess, possibly from a bite wound or scratch. The wound had been cleaned out and he had been given slow-release antibiotics as well as anti-inflammatories, pain killers and some injections to help boost his immune system. He said the cub was ready to come home and the decision was made to try to reintroduce him back to the family. Reintroducing the cub to the family was potentially risky because Ketswiri might reject him, but we felt the risk was small because he had been gone for only just over 12 hours and the family were well bonded now the cubs are over 6 months old.

Simon brought the cub back to Karongwe and GVI staff and vols assisted with locating and following Ketswiri, keeping track of the proximity of the lions who were in the neighbouring block and the biggest threat to the cheetah, collecting a meal of impala for the family and transporting the cub back to the family. It was a huge operation that required teamwork and every member of the GVI and Karongwe Team put in 100% to ensure it went smoothly.

Once we had located the cheetah family, we gave them the impala in the hope that they would appreciate the free meal and would then stay still for long enough for us to reintroduce the cub. They took the bait gratefully having only had the very small impala the day before and whilst they were distracted feeding we brought the cub to them in a crate. Ketswiri and the sisters did not react in any way to our close proximity to them with the strange crate, they just continued eating. Simon opened the door to the crate and after a few seconds the cub ran out. One of his sisters spotted him first and ran over, jumping on him and licking him. Then Ketswiri made a call to him and he wobbled over to her where she immediately started licking him. What a huge relief! There were then a few minutes of him standing looking bemused whilst his family sniffed and licked him all over, before everyone went back to tucking into their dinner, including the little boy who still had not had anything to eat for a number of days.

 Myself and a couple of the other GVI staff then stayed with the family until dark to keep observing the reunion, in case Ketswiri decided later to reject him, and also to protect them as the little cub was still very wobbly on his feet. Over the course of the next 4 hours the family did a lot of licking and bonding as well as eating. His sisters visibly pleased to see him and playing with him a lot. He, as usual, choosing to cuddle up with mum the majority of the time, he has always been a little mummies boy. He continued to give out loud contact calls for the rest of the day despite being curled up with his mum, it’s hard to say why, whether he was still confused from the drugs or he was just excited to be back with his family and letting the whole world know it. He was also very wobbly on his legs due to effect of the drugs wearing off and also from weakness and from being sat in a box for hours whilst at the vets. But his strength and stability improved over the course of the 4 hours we watched over him. He ate well until his belly was as round as a balloon and he was putting full weight on the injured leg by the time we left them at dark.

We went straight back to find that at first light. The little cub was looking stiff but not in pain and otherwise quite mobile. Over the course of the following week his leg improved each day and now he is back to his usual tree-climbing, rough and tumbling self.

The whole process was quite an emotional one for everyone involved and raised a lot of questions as to the ethics of us intervening rather than letting nature take its course. There is no question that if we had not taken the injured cub that afternoon he would not have survived the night. Cheetah are the bottom of the hierarchy when it comes to predators, particularly at night, and are permanently on the run from the larger carnivores. The family has already lost one female cub last month to the lions, and in the state he was in he would have been unable to run away from anything, even a jackal would have taken him. When working with wildlife we usually say we only intervene when the situation has been brought about as a result of human impact. However, everyone agrees that we should also not let an animal suffer, the cub was clearly suffering and I doubt anyone could have sat by and watched him deteriorate as we did without wanting to help. In addition, as we discussed in our previous blog about the Cheetah Metapopulation Project, the conservation status of cheetah is in a dire position, and this is largely due to human impact. We strongly believe this justifies our decision to intervene and give our cheetah cubs every chance possible to remain in the wild and contribute positively to the cheetah population of Southern Africa. This is why we made the potentially risky decision to try to reintroduce the cub to his family, his only chance to remain a wild cheetah rather than to condemn him to a life in captivity as so many cheetah in South Africa have. Thankfully the reintroduction was successful.

The fact is cheetah need all the help they can get. The population of wild cheetah in the Lowveld Region is in decline. In the past few years there has been only one cub survive and go on to breed in our area, this is one of Ketswiri’s cubs from a couple of years ago, and she was the sole survivor of a litter of 5. Another one of our female cheetah, that is now deceased, raised two male cubs to adulthood but they were later killed in poacher’s snares. Ketswiri lost an entire litter earlier this year, probably to leopard. The father of these cubs was killed by lions in July. This litter started with four but one female was killed by lions. The two remaining sisters were separated from their mother and brother during the lion attack and had it not been for our intervention in that instance they would also not have survived. So the sad reality is without our help cheetah would not be able to sustain their population again this year. On Karongwe, we would have gone from 7 cheetah to 2, thankfully due to everyone’s efforts we currently still have 5 left; Ketswiri, the three remaining cubs and their uncle Djuma. These cheetah cubs are so precious to the Metapopulation Project that we will happily help them in the struggle to survive whenever we are able and we feel it is appropriate.

Rosie Miles

Base Manager GVI Karongwe

Rescuing a Cheetah Cub