Cheetahs

Cheetahs - my favourite animal.  Sleek, gorgeous, fast.  What a marvel.

We've had three opportunities to experience cheetahs at Na'ankuse.  On the carnivore feeding tour, we saw two cheetahs through a fence as food was thrown over to them.  (they may be behind a fence, but these animals have huge territory to range over.  It's not like a zoo.)

More exciting was this morning's Walk with a Cheetah.  Kiki is one of three cheetahs who has been hand-raised at Na'ankuse.  Farmers will often trap very young cheetah babies, and put them in a hole to attract the mother cheetah who has been attacking their livestock.  The mother comes to the hole for her young, and is captured and the farmer gets rid of it one way or another.  This time, the mother never came back and the farmer called Marlisse to take the days-old cubs.  They were consequently hand-raised off a bottle and are totally tame.

Kiki arrived in a truck to meet us out in the midde of the veldt.  There were the three of us and a four seniors from Wisconsin just finishing their education degree with a Study Abroad in Namibia.  After a bit of petting and stroking near the truck, Kiki got a bit of food to lead her out onto the veldt.  We walked quite a distance with her as she got bits of food along the way.  She spotted some hartebeest and got distracted to go after them, but mostly we just walked together through the brush and thornbushes.  Solomon told of one time Kiki took off after a baby springbok.  Worried about the demise of the poor springbok, Solomon ran to follow her, in hopes of rescuing the yougn springbok if Kiki attacked.  When the springbok fell, he thought it was finished.  However, when he caught up, Kiki was waiting by the springbok until it got up and started moving again.  These animals have the instinct to hunt, but not the killer instinct and certainly not the skill.

Well, the walk was thrilling, but of course there were 7 people taking turns getting close and patting Kiki.  This afternoon we saw Cheetahs Up Close.  Just the three of us, and three cheetahs, and Johannes the guide.  Unbelievable!

Johannes brought chicken parts along and fed the cats alternately.  He was good at advising how to get pictures with the right angle to the sun and so on.  Kiki, our female friend from the morning, Aisha, another female, and Aiku, the large male, were incredibly tame and approachable.  We spent about an hour with them.  They LOVE being tickled under their chins, just like a house cat.  And they purred constantly, with a deep-throated purr.  All three of us got to pet and tickle.  Jamie fed them some of their food: boy did they stick closely to her after that!  They kept licking her hand even after the food was gone.  They even licked my hand hopefully although I had never had food.   This was truly an amazing experience.  

I have so many pictures from that hour visit, and Wayne has so many videos, I'm torn about how to illustrate this post.  One of the big thrills for me, of course, was watching the intense excitement on my granddaughter Jamie's face.  Her emotion was palpable.

Here she is petting Aiku.

And here the cheetah is licking her hand for the food.

Caracals

We were astonished on our carnivore feeding tour to be escorted into the enclosure where the caracals were.  These had been hand-raised and so were perfectly safe.  They were so soft to the touch, we couldn't get enough of them!

Lions at Na'ankuse

We were standing a meter or so from an electrified fence behind which were three lions.  All of a sudden there was an enormous roar and we all jumped back terrified.  Well, yes, they were behind that fence, but they were awfully close. It was Clarence the male who had emitted such an enormous roar.  

The three lions were related, and left orphaned when young cubs.  They live in a wide open area within that fence, and are fed each day by Na'ankuse staff.  So they know to appear at that spot in the fence every day.  They were the first visit of our Carnivore Feeding Tour here at Na'ankuse, and already the shadows were very long, because the tour had been delayed to accommodate some guests arriving late.  They never appeared, so the lighting was dim, but we did get a tour to ourselves - AND, we're going to get a whole make-up tour tomorrow.

One of the females was in heat and we saw the male mate twice with her.  He's had a vasectomy because Na'ankuse has no license to breed lions, but he hasn't lost the desire.

After a brief few seconds, the female hisses, swats, and drives away the male.

Wild Dogs in Africa

If you're a wild dog and you want to have a pup, you better be the alpha female.  That's the only dog in the pack allowed to have a litter, which will number 15-23.  Any other pups will be killed by the pack.  After the litter is born, the whole pack will swallow food, and then return to the pups and regurgitate it. They are very co-operative animals.

Farmers don't like wild dogs, because they create havoc with their livestock.  One farmer found a litter of wild dogs, and touched the dogs.  After that, the mother will not return to look after them.  A call to Marlisse earned them a home at Na'ankuse.

On our Carnivore feeding tour, we saw them tear apart parts of an Oryx and wildebeest.  We were looking down on them from a viewing platform.  They were like - well - wild dogs!

African Houses

We walked into a magnificent holiday house at Na'ankuse due to some vagaries of bookings.  Huge four bedrooms, 3 1/2 bath, swimming pool, out at the end of about 5 Kim's of rough road from the lodge.  Gorgeous vista out across the veldt.

Here's the house.

You can see how isolated it is from this picture.  Notice the chimney shaped like a bird.

Here's the room where Wayne and I were.

Here's the dining room.

Beautifully decorated but missing some things we would take for granted back in Canada, like heating and air conditioning and double glazed windows.  Basically you have to be ready to take the weather as it comes, and cope.  It was CHILLY in the morning and late in the evening.

Best of all was our ability to see wildlife right from our yard.  When we returned this morning, there was a duiker visiting in the yard.  Apparently, it had spent a lot of time at the Na'ankuse farm, but had drifted over to our place.  It was not at all skittish, as you can see.