By Lente Roode | Project Leader
Philipina’s offspring have now reached sexual maturity, which means it is time to start separating them. In the wild, female cheetahs are solitary animals, and will only be seen in the presence of other cheetahs if they are with their cubs, or near a male cheetah during breeding season. Male cheetahs tend to stay in groups called coalitions.
At the Hoedspruit Endangered Species Centre, they keep a close eye on the cheetahs to see when it is time to begin the separation process. At the moment, two of Philipina’s offspring are together in the one area, two in another, and the female King cheetah on her own. If you follow us on social media, you will recall from our post on the 19th of April this year, that the female King cheetah was separated from the others so that a wound on her hip could be attended to. While alone in recovery, she already showed signs of preferring solitude, so it was decided to keep her separate from this point on, which we posted about on the 12th of June.
When the time comes, if the others show signs of wanting to be alone, they too will be moved, with the male cheetah being placed with a suitable coalition at the Centre.
We will now be closing off this project, as Philipina’s offspring are adults and their next step will be to stay at the Centre until a suitable reserve is found for their release. Many factors go into the choice of reserve, including the existing cheetah metapopulation, as well as the DNA of the cheetahs.
We would like to thank each and every person who so generously donated towards their care. Please do continue to follow us on social media as we will bring you news of their releases here.
A couple of the photos below show the cheetahs in their feeding area. This is a cordoned-off cemented space where their food is placed, and a trap door opened to allow the cheetahs to enter and be fed. This is done so that their food intake can be monitored. Once they have eaten, they are then left to go back out into their natural wild areas.
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