Alison Mees: Cheetah conservation

Alison Mees of Alison Mees Photography came to speak to us today. The photograph shows her standing next to a table on which she had placed some cards with wildlife photographs she had taken in this country and in Africa.

She did not come to talk to us about photography but on behalf of the Cheetah Conservation Fund UK (“CCF”).

She fell in love with cheetahs as a child and spent the sixteen years preceding the Covid pandemic living in Zambia, Malawi, Tanzania and Kenya, where she ran safari camps. During that time she had photographed and studied many cheetahs and learned much about them.

Once they leave their mothers females live solitary lives. Males from the same litter often bond and remain together for life. Cubs leave their mothers after 12-24 months, during which time their mothers look after them and teach them how to hunt. Cheetahs are the fastest land animal and rely on their speed to catch their prey. However, they can only maintain their top speeds for a short time. After making a successful kill they may need to rest for 30 minutes or so to recover enough to eat their prey.

Cheetahs avoid confrontation with other predators. If a lion or hyena comes to steal their catch from them they will slink away rather than resist. Mother cheetahs have even been known to retreat when another predator tries to snatch their cubs.

This reluctance to confront other predators is one of the reasons their numbers are diminishing in the wild. Other reasons include loss of habitat, poaching and conflicts with local herders whose animals they target. Alison showed us a map of Africa and the Near East with the areas where cheetahs were found 100 years ago marked in pink and the areas where they are found now marked in a darker hue. The difference is striking. Over the same period the number of cheetahs in the wild has gone down from 100,000 to under 7,500. India’s Asian Cheetahs have disappeared completely but there are now attempts to reintroduce cheetahs there from the African population.

Cheetah cubs are very popular pets, particularly in the Near East. They become more difficult to control as they grow older. CCF and its local partners try to prevent poaching as much as possible but it is estimated that 300-500 cubs are still taken from the wild each year.

CCF does have facilities where it can rear rescued cubs and a large enclosed sanctuary where they can be released when they are old enough. Whilst that is successful, without their mothers to teach them the young cheetahs never learn how to hunt and rely on humans to feed them throughout their lives.

CCF and its partners have reduced conflicts between cheetahs and local farmers and herders by breeding Anatolian Shepherd Dogs in Africa. Once they have been trained these dogs are given to local people to guard their flocks and herds from predators. They are large dogs with loud barks. Once they have detected a predator in the area their bark alone is usually enough to scare it off. The puppies are brought up around sheep and goats, so they are very comfortable and relaxed with them.