Devastation for Conservation as Cheetah Mom Found Suspectedly Shot and Cubs Missing
Tragedy and confusion struck for cheetah conservationists when tracking an unresponsive collar led to the discovery of a healthy mother cheetah, mysteriously deceased, and the disappearance of all three of her babies. Now, days later, after many attempts to track them down, the cheetah cubs are still sadly nowhere to be seen.
Who was the Cheetah
The cheetah and victim of this incident was a free-roaming female that the Cheetah Outreach Trust, along with Ashia Cheetah Conservation and Stellenbosch University, had captured and fitted with a tracking collar last year in June. She was part of their Free Roaming Cheetah Census, which tracks and monitors cheetahs that live outside of protected reserves, mostly across large farmlands.
This specific female had a massive range, moving across about 80,000 hectares of farmland, where she managed to coexist with humans, livestock, and other wildlife. The team monitored her movements through her GPS collar.
Initial Conservation Success
In a sense of conservation success, this story was turning out to be massive. As it turned out, the cheetah was pregnant and was soon due to contribute three new members to the project, in the form of perfectly healthy cheetah babies.
Cheetah gestation is roughly 90 to 95 days (about 3 months), so if they collared her in June and she gave birth later that year, the timing lines up well for her to have conceived either just before or soon after the collaring.
It makes sense that they didn’t mention her being pregnant at the time of collaring; it may not have been known yet. It can be tough to confirm pregnancy in wild cheetahs unless they’re closely observed or physically examined, which they often avoid to reduce stress on the animal.
Rearing Cheetah Cubs Amongst Modern Humans
The Free Roaming Cheetah Census is that it’s not about locking wildlife away behind fences; it’s about saving the wild and creating an environment where cheetahs, farmers, livestock, and people all exist side by side. And this cheetah was living proof that the concept can work, but everyone needs to play their part.
She managed to raise three cubs. That’s no easy task because raising cheetah cubs is one of the toughest challenges in the wild, and a larger percentage of babies never reach adulthood. Their cubs are vulnerable to predators, hunger, and all sorts of dangers. Now, add the pressure of sharing space with humans, and it is even harder.
But when everyone comes together, this project creates a space where scientists can track animal movements, farmers are actively involved and provide support on the ground, and conservation teams can strategically plan to achieve the greater goal of building a healthier wild cheetah population. And this was exactly the story unfolding for the cheetah and her three thriving cubs.
Sad Reality
A very sad reality started to sink in when monitors noticed the cheetah’s collar had gone still. There was no movement and no signal changes, and that’s always a worrying sign in wildlife monitoring. At first, there was hope; this had happened before with bad satellite reception, especially in remote farmland areas where signal gaps aren’t unusual. But as the days passed with no change, that silent collar became a signal in itself, ironically. It was the beginning of the end of what was a beautiful, hard-earned story.
The moment the team sent a farmer to check the last known location, they found her remains, which was the moment it was all confirmed. Then, the grim suspicion followed quickly. Looking at her collar data and remaids, it seems likely she was shot, wounded, and left to die by a farmer.
Fate of Cheetah Cubs
After their mother died, the three cheetah cubs, too young to survive alone, disappeared into a neighboring private game reserve. Despite search efforts, no sign of them was ever found. Restricted access and the challenges of the terrain made it nearly impossible to track them. Without their mother’s protection, their chances of survival were extremely slim. Their fate will likely always remain unkown.