Sponsor a cheetah

The Cheetah Enclosure – 5

Choose a resident cheetah to sponsor

Please become a conservation partner and assist us by covering part or all of the annual costs for caring for these non-releasable cheetahs. Each cheetah costs CCF an estimated £2,500 a year in care. These costs include food, veterinary care and pen maintenance.

If you sponsor the cost of the care of a CCF non-releasable cheetah (of your choice!) for £100 or more, you will receive a personal letter of thanks and a CCF sticker. If you sponsor a cheetah at any level, you'll receive a link to a special web page containing up to date news from Namibia including the latest on how our resident cheetahs are doing.

In addition, you can create your own personalised Sponsorship Certificate to print out, and download a special photo poster of your cheetah, taken from the official cheetah ID book in Namibia. Each JPEG poster file is up to 1MB in size and up to 250mm across, and shows pictures of the cheetah, highlighting distinguishing markings for identification.

To create a Sponsorship Certificate, download a poster, or access the latest cheetah news from Namibia, be sure to click ‘Return to Merchant’ after you have completed your PayPal transaction, or you will not see our ‘Thank You’ page, which contains the information required.

If you sponsor a cheetah for a whole year (£2,500) you will receive special recognition at our headquarters in Namibia.

Pick a cheetah - there are six different pages:

Sponsoring is simple! Just click the 'Sponsor Me' button under any cheetah's story. You will be taken to a PayPal secure payment page, where you can choose how much you want to sponsor your cheetah for. Once you've sponsored one cheetah, you can come back and sponsor another one if you wish. Here are four of our resident cheetahs. See the other pages for more.

Cleo

In 2004, Cleo was found on a farm, held in a tiny chicken cage, during a CCF visit to check on the health of one of our Anatolian Livestock Guarding Dogs. Following discussion, the farmer agreed to let CCF take the 6 month old cub. Following quarantine she has was introduced to two other young females to develop social skills and play behaviour. Despite the Ministry of Environment and Tourism notifying the public on guidelines for holding large carnivores in captivity, members of the public continue to blatantly ignore these guidelines. The result is that CCF and other NGOs in Namibia continue to receive carnivores that have been captured for all the wrong reasons and then held in sub-optimum and often appalling conditions.

Ohana

In late 2004 a farmer captured Ohana (formerly known as Luna) with her two brothers (Orion and Saturn) in the Dordabis area on a sheep farm. Female cheetahs very rarely abandon cubs so it is very unusual to catch cubs without also catching the mother. It is not known what happened to their mother. The three were held in a small cage before CCF was contacted. Cheyne School in Brampton, Ontario, Canada (whose mascot is the cheetah) adopted this cheetah and held a special renaming competition. The name they chose was Ohana. They tell us, "Ohana means family in Hawaiian. Family to them means that no one gets left behind. Although 'ohana' is not derived from an African language, we felt the meaning of family represents the global family that is supporting this particular cat and the efforts of the Cheetah Conservation Fund." Cheyne School is committed to raising the full cost of a year's support for Ohana.

Orion

In late 2004 a farmer captured Orion with his two siblings (Ohana and Saturn) in the Dordabis area on a sheep farm. Female cheetahs very rarely abandon cubs so it is very unusual to catch cubs without also catching the mother. It is not known what happened to their mother. The three were held in a small cage before CCF was contacted.

Saturn

In late 2004 a farmer captured Saturn with his two siblings (Ohana and Orion) in the Dordabis area on a sheep farm. Female cheetahs very rarely abandon cubs so it is very unusual to catch cubs without also catching the mother. It is not known what happened to their mother. The three were held in a small cage before CCF was contacted. Shortly after the cubs' arrival at CCF, it was discovered that Saturn had a broken 4th neck vertebra and a broken front foot. These injuries were most likely sustained in the trap cage, possibly from the door closing on him. The neck injury revealed itself in impaired locomotion in the hindlegs. His front foot was put in a cast and, following treatment with anti-inflamatories, his locomotion returned to normal. The neck injury, amazingly enough, proved not to be fatal.

Amani

"I was caught by a farmer in the Khomas Hochland area (east of Windhoek) when I was about one year old. CCF does not know what happened to the rest of my family as I was too young to be on my own at that stage. The farmer gave me to a lodge, and I was kept there as a companion for their tame cheetah. However, we never got along and after a year they decided they did not want me anymore. CCF fetched me in June 2006. Amani means 'peace' in Swahili."

Amani is a true testament to the survival of the cheetahs. She was slow to grow accustomed to a new way of life at CCF, but once she found her niche in the girls world, there was no stopping this feisty cat.

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