Kgalagadi Cheetah Sightings - CURRENT

[nan]

Günther & Sibusio (Beauty's Offspring)

24/01/2017 - In the far south of the valley- near Houmed

Günther

Sibusio

[Mel]

Muskateers
01/01/2017 between 13th and 14th Borehole

The loop around Thirteenth Borehole was quiet, so we decided to go up as far as Fourteenth. We never got there. In-between the two loops, a handful of cars were stopped on the side of the road. ... Getting closer we saw that the mound in the middle of the riverbed was in fact a wildebeest carcass and that there were four cheetah imitating the lions of earlier, sleeping under a tree on the far side of the river.

What is it with all these cats and wanting to stay under trees on the far riverbed After a while, one of the cheetahs got up and came across to feed on the carcass

Aramis

[Mel]

Muskateers

01/01/2017 between 5 and 6 pm - 13th to 14th Borehole

As nice as it was to see the lions we only stayed with them for a short while as we wanted to hurry off to the to cheetahs
It wasn’t too far away and when we arrived at the site of the kill we saw that we were in luck as they are back on the kill



The lighting was still quite bad and the cheetah were a bit far away, so the quality of our photos is not great, but they give you an idea of the sighting.







It was really nice to see the interaction between the four as they fed, with the occasional squabble over who had the best feeding spot on the wildebeest

[Mel]

Corinne with Hinault & Lizzie
03/01/2017 between 11.30 am and 1 pm, Batulama to Gemsbokplein

We had a short break from the car at Urikaruus before we climbed back into the car and headed south. We had just passed Kamqua when another vehicle stopped us and said that there were some cheetah on a kill a bit further down the road. As we travelled on down, we impatiently expected to see them each time we rounded a bend in the road. Yours truly was getting a bit agitated as cheetahs are one of my favourite cats, and just as we started really wondering that we had missed them, between Batulama and Gemsbokplein we saw the 4 car traffic jam.







Luckily for us they were positioned under a tree right next to the road











Cars came and went as we stayed at the sighting enjoying every moment of it.

[Mel]

Corinne with Hinault & Lizzie
03/01/2017 between 11.30 am and 1 pm, Batulama to Gemsbokplein

It appeared as if the cheetah got two meals for the price of one.

The springbok ewe which they had caught had clearly been pregnant and the unborn calf is clearly visible in these pics
Really sad, I know, but then that is nature









We were with them for about an hour and a half before we left them under their tree

[Peter Connan]

Rooiputs February Males

29 April 2017, approximately 500m north of Rooiputs waterhole:

The worst-photographed Cheetah chase ever...

The lookout:

Fast food:

The chase is on!

Other end:

Focus error:

Give up:

Late support:

[ExFmem]

Duke

I'm pretty sure this is Duke, but doesn't seem to have been recent sightings of him acc. to the Cheetah Guide - please confirm

5/10/17 2 kms. South of Monro

Single male in riverbed walking South

[ExFmem]

Rooiputs February Males

Pair 1 - 4/27/17 South of Leeuwdril

Two males appeared to be eating something on the ground and "spitting out" pellets (??). Walked over the dune thereafter.

[ExFmem]

Rooiputs February Males

Here's Pair 3 - 5/15/17 At Rooiputs waterhole area

2 males on fallen tree, marking territory as they walked South. One has a wound on rear thigh area and one has a piece of its ear torn and looks like an eye wound on one of them, but seemed okay despite this.

[Mel]

Corinne and Hamri mixing their 2016 litters

There isn't that much really that we know for sure. What we do know, however, is that Matthew saw Corinne with all of her four cubs on the 14th of November. The next day he saw her again, but with only two cubs left. Of course we assumed, that the other two had fallen victim to lions or leopards. But on the 2nd December a post on Facebook appeared showing a cheetah mum with four cubs on the Auob side. (It's linked from the cheetah sighting index here.) Big confusion, obviously! It turned out that it was Hanri who had now four instead of two cubs and it turned out that the additional two cubs were Corinne's.

So, in the night of the 14th to the 15th November 2016 Corinne and Hanri met up somehow somewhere in the northern Auob. Why Hanri ended up leaving with two of Corinne's cubs will forever be their secret.

Even though we would have been able to stitch the story together because there was also BluTuna and katydownunder in the park at the same time and both saw Corinne on the 15th too, I think we're incredibly lucky that it was Matthew himself.