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International Cheetah Day

Gracey's Blog· Big Cat Cousins

4 Dec

December 4 is  International Cheetah Day

Cheetah in front of waterberg plateau

Cheetah in front of the Waterberg Plateau in Namibia

Khayam was the inspiration for today.

The Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF) has declared December 4 to be International Cheetah Day.  The cheetah is not just the fastest, but the oldest of the big cats having survived over 3 million years of glaciations and warming cycles, and even its own genetic bottleneck. But with habitat destruction and conflict with humans, the cheetah could become extinct in less than 20 years.

In 1977, Dr. Laurie Marker  traveled to Namibia with a female cheetah named Khayam. Dr. Marker wanted to see if it was possible for a cheetah that had lived their entire life in captivity to be released into the wild. But when Dr. Marker and Khayam arrived in Namibia, she learned  the cheetahs needs were quite different from what the wildlife community had assumed.

Cheetahs were considered vermin, pests that should be shot on sight.  The Namibian farmers worried about their small livestock herds, thought of the cheetah as a threat to their own livelihood. Dr. Marker  soon realized that if the cheetah was to survive in Namibia, a solution must be found to enable the farmers and the cheetah to live side-by-side, allowing both to thrive. Shortly after the assessment of the cheetahs’ needs, Dr. Marker also realized there was no group working to find a solution to help the farmers that would in turn save the cheetah.

Gracey in front of CCF Sign

At the entrance of CCF in Namibia.

The Cheetah Conservation Fund

This past summer we had the honor of being able to speak with Dr. Marker as part of our course work in Namibia. When we were sitting in a meeting room at CCF,  talking with Dr. Marker she explained that she realized “There is no “they” and if you want something done you have to do it yourself.”

So in 1990, she founded the Cheetah Conservation Fund.  CCF developed non-lethal predator control methods like the Livestock Guarding Dog  program, which has placed over 400 Anatolian Shepherd and Kangal dogs with local Namibian farmers, reducing the predation rates on the guarded flocks by over 80 percent.  This was the first time the farmers were offered an alternative to shooting cheetahs and now Namibia’s cheetah population is actually increasing!

CCF is an innovative conservation program that has also instituted the Future Farmers of Africa program to teach best practices for integrated livestock and wildlife management.  In addition the Bushblok, an award winning fuel log program, has been utilizing the biomass material created by harvesting the thornbush  encroaching on valuable habitat lands.

All of these initiatives are in the spirit of social entrepreneurship because more success can be achieved with wildlife conservation efforts when these efforts are proven to be compatible with human livelihoods. Dr. Marker also said ““Conservation is not just about the cheetah, it’s about improving  human lives because  people decide whether the cheetahs live.”

December 4 was Khayam’s birthday, so in honor of her participation as the cheetah that led Dr. Marker and her team to initiate  the programs that will save the cheetah, this date was declared  International Cheetah Day!

Dr. Marker, founder of CCF and Joanne McGonagle at Cincinnati Zoo

I sent my mom to visit with Dr. Marker at the Cincinnati Zoo

What can you do to help celebrate International Cheetah Day?

Learn more about the cheetah.  We hope you will be inspired and tell a friend, and they will do the same.

Visit the Cheetah Conservation Fund’s website at cheetah.org to learn more about the cheetah and these innovative programs.

Sign up for the Cheetah Conservation Fund’s newsletter.

Like CCF on Facebook and Follow Dr. Marker on Twitter.

Thank you for caring about all cats big and small.

Previous Post: « Walkin in a Kitty Wonderland Photo Contest
Next Post: African Lions Need Your Signature Now! »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Elizabeth Flynn says

    December 8, 2012 at 10:36 am

    Love cheetahs! Thanks for sharing, Gracey. xoxoxo

  2. Michele C. Hollow says

    December 5, 2012 at 9:48 am

    I am going to share with my son’s class!

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Hi, I'm Joanne and I love all cats. With a Global Field Master of Zoology degree focused on big cat conservation, I like to learn and talk about big cats too. I share my habitat with Paul and we were adopted by our cats Annie, Eddie and Mercy. The Tiniest Tiger has a fierce following of cat lovers and we'd love it, if you'd join us.

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