By CCF Staff | CCF Staff
Our youngest cheetah, B2 is now one year old and has been bonded succesfully with Phoenix. The two are doing great together and B2 is settling into his new home with his new coalition mate nicely! CCF was pleased to host some of the management of B2Gold and their guests during a visit to the CCF main campus yesterday. B2Gold operate the nearby Otjikoto gold mine, which came into production late last year and is an important addition to the Namibian economy. B2Gold has been a wonderful donor to CCF and our ecology staff assist in biodiversity research on the mine’s set-aside ecological reserve. The most recent addition to our resident cheetahs, B2, is named after B2Gold.
CCF has a new resident cheetah – Romeo. He was a farmer’s longtime family pet. Recently the farmer and his wife had to leave their home for assisted living and released Romeo into CCF’s care. Although he was very well cared for and is a very sweet cheetah, the practice of taking cheetah cubs as pets is generally not allowed. We are thankful that he was so well cared for and that the farmer entrusted CCF with Romeo’s future care. He will be integrated into CCF’s other orphans and hopefully create some lifelong bonds with members of his own species. Romeo recently underwent a full health check, under anesthesia. We took some genetic samples to be stored and he recovered perfectly. We will keep you posted on his progress and socialization with the other cheetahs here at CCF.
Dr. Léart Petrick, a Windhoek eye specialist with a practise focused on serving humans, recently travelled to Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF) to perform an operation on a different kind of patient. Khayjay, a four-and-a-half-year-old cheetah that has lived at CCF since he was three weeks of age, successfully underwent a 45-minute surgery to address a chronic, debilitating eye problem.
“Khayjay’s left eye was creating excessive amounts of discharge, causing him discomfort and interfering with his vision”, said CCF veterinarian Dr. Mari-Ann DaSilva. “When Khayjay was not responding to our initial treatment protocol, we decided to examine him thoroughly under anaesthesia”.
Dr. Da Silva consulted with Dr. Petrick, who agreed that surgery was the best option. The operation was performed at CCF on 6 January, with Dr. Petrick bringing his own special ophthalmology tools. Dr. Petrick has practised in Windhoek for approximately 10 years and occasionally makes his services available to assist veterinarians with domestic animals. Khayjay’s surgery marks the first time he has operated on a cheetah.
“Khayjay’s problem is the result of long-term inflammation, and the procedure I performed is fairly simple”, said Dr. Petrick. “Khayjay seemed to respond well to the surgery. We anticipate he will make a quick recovery and have full use of the eye”.
During the surgery, Khayjay’s third eyelid was sutured shut to act as a natural bandage. It will remain closed for a few weeks to allow the eye to heal. Eye ointment is being applied five times a day. “The sutures are absorbable and will dissolve on their own. At that time, his eye should be well into the healing process and function normally”, said Dr. Da Silva.
““We are so pleased to have a resource like Dr. Petrick in the community who is willing to step outside of his normal practise and donate his services to help us with one of our orphan cheetahs”, said Dr. Laurie Marker, Founder and Executive Director of CCF. “We don’t have many veterinarian specialists in the country, so having an interested human specialist is wonderful. Having healthy eyes and clear vision is just as important to cheetahs as it is for people.”
We are very pleased to share that our cheetahs are all healthy and well as we enter our dry season!
P.S. GlobalGiving's first matching opportunity of 2015 is Wednesday, March 18th! GlobalGiving is offering a 30% match on all donations up to $1,000 per donor per project, while funds remain. There is $60,000 available in matching and matching begins at 9:00:01 EDT and lasts until funds run out or 23:59:59 EDT. There is also $2,000 in bonus prizes available!
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