by Mary Wykstra

The last months have been very hectic - car problems, computer problems and missing our collared cheetah signal for six weeks. We scoured every hill, crack and crevice in her range and about a 10km radius outside her regular range with absolutely no luck. I had decided that if we had no signal in this 6th week I would hire a pilot and fly the area. After a full day of searching we camped on top of the highest hill for the night (Sunday 15 April) only to find that low-and-behold there was a faint signal on the early morning of the 16th.

We were on our way to a workshop that we were hosting for the managers of the cattle dips that we have been assisting, so despite our excitement about actually getting a signal we had to get to the meeting on time. I was able to free Lumumba (our Community Officer) from the second day and send him as the driver for a volunteer and CCF Namibia staff member (these are not easy farms to find your way around if you do know which ones are washed out, which ones have locked gates and when you are entering private property). They were able to get a strong signal on the 17th and the herders in the area claimed there were three small cubs with the collared mom!

During the weeks that we were searching for our case study cheetah we received reports of two females with two and four cubs of different ages. We also had regular reports of three adults and two adults. This brings our known cheetah population in the area to 17! Bear in mind - this is a settlement area, not a commercial or tourist-centered ranch. The human population is around 3000 across the four farms that we have identified as this mom's range.

Today we found our mom and although we did not see the cubs we had a glimpse of her and the herders in the area say she looks fit and definitely has three tiny fur balls rolling around behind her (educated guess...8 weeks old). She was VERY near a herd of goats when we arrived so we stuck around to find that she was actually circling the herd. She must be hungry as this would be week 2 of the cubs being out of the den. She is in an area where poaching is lowest and monkeys, hares, wild pig and hyrax are common. Lets all wish our mom best of luck with this

litter. We estimated her age at 9 when she was immobilized just two years ago. She successfully raised two cubs that became independent in December 2006. She certainly is a fertile cheetah!!

The other bit of good news is that for the first time since we started this case study in 2004 we have had a full month with no livestock losses reported! I fully believe that the education through our community officer and the livestock dip project have improved the understanding of people in living with cheetahs! We are also seeing some small increases in impala and dikdik populations, so perhaps our anti-poaching work (removing snares, community reports to KWS...) have also assisted.