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E-letter to CCF
international supporters,
August 2005

Dr. Laurie Marker’s Field Notes
August 2005

Dear Friends,

Latest news first: we held the seventh annual gala dinner and auction, Cheetah Country, A Celebration of Speed and Elegance, in support of the CCF's efforts to ensure the survival of Namibia's cheetahs, at the Windhoek Country Club on 30 July. The evening included a candlelit dinner, silent auction, live music, performances and awards. Hundreds of people attended the dinner which included business, conservation and government representatives. Namibia's Founding President, Dr. Sam Nujoma, gave the welcoming speech in which he spoke about Namibia being the Cheetah Capital of the world and reminded all Namibians of their responsibility to care for the earth. Click here for the full story.

Education is key to our work of saving the wild cheetah, and over 3,000 students have attended our assembly school programs with an additional 300 students over-nighting at our camps. We recently hosted a series of week-long courses in Integrated Livestock and Wildlife Management for communal farmers (shown here). The courses were held at CCF's Research and Education Centre. To read more, click here. In April, CCF Namibia hosted a 12-day Environmental Education course for young Namibian professionals. Participants left CCF with the knowledge, skills, and experience needed to build effective, solution-oriented, natural resource education programs for specific audiences. The courses were held by CCF in collaboration with the Smithsonian Institution, Wilderness Safaris Namibia, Environmental Education and Conservation Global and the Ministry of Environment and Tourism.

On the road

Since you heard from me last, my work at CCF has kept me very busy traveling the world in our task of saving the wild cheetah.

Just recently I presented a paper at the 2nd Annual International Conference on the Kangal Shepherd Dogs in Turkey, in the Kangal part of the Anatolian Plateau, the sheep dogs’ native area. We visited local villages to observe working dogs and to learn more about the success of the breed throughout its 6,000 year history.

In February, following a gathering at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, France, where a North African cheetah group was formed, I went to Kenya to work with Mary Wykstra’s CCF Kenya team whose research and education programs are taking root in the country.In March I spent a week in the Ahaggar Mountains in Algeria with several biologists from the Sahal Saharan Interest Group (SSIG) looking for signs of cheetah and desert gazelle. Although no cheetah were viewed, evidence of their presence through much scat at trees existed, and we learned a lot from local nomadic people - cheetah are known to catch small stock and camels. Algeria’s serious commitment to cheetah conservation is evidenced by their recent production of a cheetah postage stamp.

After spending March and April in the USA developing contacts and promoting CCF’s work, in May I returned to Namibia via the UK for presentations in London, Winchester and Chester. Then on to Brazil for the IUCN Cat Specialist Group meeting for a conference on the ten species of South American cats. I have discovered that CCF’s programs are a model for many cat conservation programs worldwide since we have found some solutions to reducing the conflict between humans and wildlife. It is a pleasure to see that CCF has such a wide reaching positive influence in the plight to save the large cats of the world.

This September and October once again I will be travelling the USA and briefly in the UK on November 16/17. For details of my tours please visit our website calendar.

And finally…

Chewbaaka’s Birthday and ‘Peep’, the rescued Cheetah Cub

On July 1, the same day we celebrated Chewbaaka’s milestone 10th birthday, we picked up a cub from a farm near Omitara, where I first lived upon moving to Namibia 15 years ago. A farmworker saw the cheetah family, chased the cubs and caught this one. He kicked it repeatedly and then took it to a neighbor who called CCF. The cub suffered from trauma to the head, spent three days in convulsions, resulting in neurological damage. After a few weeks of careful observation and full-time monitoring, the cub, temporarily named ‘Peep’, is now very healthy again. Certainly, Chewbaaka’s birthday will not be forgotten

On behalf of our entire CCF team, A BIG THANK YOU to all our supporters worldwide for your help in saving the wild cheetah.

Yours on behalf of the cheetah,

Laurie Marker, PhD
Director and Founder
Cheetah Conservation Fund