Some animals are so rare, it’s not funny … it’s actually tragic. And one of those animals is the cheetah.

Thank God our reserve has become a haven for these super endangered animals. Only about 300-400 cheetahs still live in the free (like on our reserve) in South Africa. And South Africa is twice the size of France! If that does not make it clear how rare these animals are, then nothing will.

So seeing cheetahs in the wild is in itself a chance and luck that really goes way, way beyond the usual.

But some guests are just lucky beyond lucky.

See the pictures that a guest of ours emailed in a few days ago. No comment. Just wow.

 

Cats, as they are known in more northern spheres, are quite busy most of the times, especially at night of course.

But this is not really true for most African cats. Most of those are really, really lazy. Or sleepy, whichever way you look at it.

Cheetahs are not active at night for instance, but at daytime, as they need perfect vision for their untra-high speed chases. But after a 5-10 second chase and kill, they eat … and then chill for up to a day. Speak of efficiency!

And speaking of cheetahs … they are one of the most endangered of animals that are “known” to humans. By “known” I mean their existence in public conscience. Every day 5-7 species go extinct (which is a shocking statistic!), but most of them tend to be obscure species that noone has ever heard about. But cheetahs, literally everyone knows what they are. It is the world’s fastest animal.

So the fact that only a few hundred are left in the wild in South Africa shows how extremely rare they have become.

I am glad to report that we have several cheetahs roaming freely on the reserve and that we have witnessed mother cheetahs successfully raising cheetah cubs on the reserve, several times. This is truly amazing! So if you want to see this super rare cat in the wild, up-close, then there is probably no better place than our reserve to do so. Here photos of yesterday to prove the point.