28-year-old modern-day Tarzan Olivier Houalet has an extraordinary affinity with big cats. He’s spent every day for the last four years with a special group of five orphaned cheetahs. Developing a unique approach to working with the animals, he has adopted their body language and mannerisms to effectively become part of their pack as he attempts to see if they can learn the survival skills their mother would have taught them. Now he, and they, are about to embark on a ground breaking experiment to see if they can be returned to the wild.

Twenty miles outside the Namibian capital Windhoek, is Amani, home to rescued lions, leopards and Olivier. Olivier Houalet was only 18 years old when he turned his back on the bright lights of Paris to live in isolation in the Namibian bush. It was here that he first discovered his hidden talent for interacting with big cats.

Olivier’s first bond was with a Kalahari lion, Bongani. Raised by humans, he was abandoned when he became too aggressive and nobody could get close to him. Every day for eight months Bongani aggressively challenged Olivier whenever he approached. However, one day, Olivier’s softly spoken voice won over Bongani, who lowered his head and calmly walked towards him, a sign that he had accepted him.

Amani is also home to five wild male cheetahs who are lucky to be alive, and who Olivier now dreams of releasing back into the wild. Rescued as wild cubs, they are all orphans. The most vulnerable of big cats, cheetahs need to spend a minimum of two years with their mother to be able to learn about survival – catching food as well as avoiding falling prey to lions and leopards. Like their mothers before them, their biggest danger, however, is from farmers who are allowed to shoot Cheetahs if they are seen as a threat to their livestock.

Olivier quickly realised that the cheetahs may be wild enough to survive on their own. But they were going to need his help. By working together as a group, cheetahs make more effective predators and can protect each other from being attacked. Olivier’s job is to get these unrelated cheetahs to form an effective hierarchy without their mothers’ help.

“I understood that I had to think like these cheetahs. I had to become like they are in order to enter their world. That’s basically the only way you can do something for them. A lot of people, scientific guys, study many years to know as much as they can about cheetahs. But they never had much time to spend every single day for such a long time close to them. That’s the challenge I decided to take on,” Olivier says.

In the four years of daily face offs, he has got to know each of their characters and the way they have developed a pecking order can clearly be seen when Olivier feeds them. This bodes well for their future, but the lives of this artificial gang of cheetahs are about to change forever and the efficiency of their family will be put to the ultimate test.

Six hours south-west of Windhoek is the Namibrand nature reserve where the cheetahs are due to be released. For Olivier, it’s the moment he has been looking forward to for the last four years. After watching them spend two days acclimatizing in a special enclosure, the day dawns for Olivier to release them into the wild. It’s a fantastic feeling, but the reality is that when the five cheetahs walk out to freedom, no-one really knows what will happen and what dangers lie ahead.

Dr Laurie Marker, founder of CCF, comments, "These are the male cheetahs that we have been tracking and getting to survive in the wild since August – our CCF staff has been working hard on this project and we are proud that they are hunting now regularly."

CHEETAH MAN
TX DATE - TUESDAY 10th FEBRUARY 2009
FIVE at 8.00PM
Repeated on Saturday 15th February at 10am.

Producer / Director - Giovanni Ulleri
Assistant Producer - Charlotte Rodrigues
Camera - Owen Prumm
Editor - Sean Davison
Executive Producer - Vivian McGrath

The programme was made by Gecko Productions and is distributed by Granada International.