For more than 2 years I have been contributing back page articles to this magazine and I have also completed a couple of online courses with them.
My biggest Wildlife Campus achievement to date?
Probably the fact that I started a course with them about 20 years ago…and I have yet to complete it! FGASA Level1. I started it so long ago that the course has actually changed its name!
This article first appeared in The Wildlife Campus magazine in September 2022.
Most game reserves will often refer to the fact that they are home to the BIG 5, and that always gets guests excited. Seeing lions, buffalo, leopards, rhinos and elephants in their natural environment is always a thrilling experience.
This has now been taken a step further in a bid to lure potential guests, the Magnificent 7…and not the movie either.
These reserves offer the added possibility of wild dog and cheetah sightings as well.
Wild dogs always get my heart racing, but that is a tale for another article.
There has never been a recorded incident of a cheetah attacking a human in the wild.
Most of the attacks have been in petting zoos or at facilities where humans and cheetahs interact in unnatural settings.
Also, being faster than any human on the planet, they would rather run than attack when in the wild.
But this story is not about their agility and speed, it is about how they can lead you on a merry dance, should they feel like it.
On a visit to a reserve on the Botswana border, we were headed back to our lodge after a successful morning drive, when our guide stopped to take a closer look some tracks in the road that he had noticed, but was uncertain about.
He hopped out of the driver’s side and squatted down in the sand to get a closer look at what seemed to be a series of fresh prints.
“These could be hyena or they could be cheetah”, he proclaimed with a quizzical look on his face.
“They are definitely cheetah tracks”, I replied from the safety of the vehicle.
“How can you be so certain while sitting so far away”?
“Because two cheetahs are sitting in the grass on the passenger side of the vehicle”, was my response.
And, sure enough, there were two brothers semi-concealed in the grass, not 20m from where our vehicle had stopped.
It was a sort of “was my face red” moment for the guide but it did allow us to spend time with them as they ignored us and played with each other. Darting through the grass and scrambling under and over fallen tree trunks which were the predominant feature of the landscape where we were parked.
Although a predator, cheetahs do not exude the raw power of a lion nor do they have the eye contact of a leopard that seems to be able to see deep into your soul.
However, if you, like me have a hankering for speed, then they, as the fastest land mammal, can achieve speeds that we can only achieve in a supercar.
As such to hold that crown that neither of the other predators nor we humans possesses.
The brothers accompanied us almost back to the lodge, turning off the road at the last moment to vanish into the foliage.
An interaction that will remain with all those in the vehicle for the longest time.
And I am confident that the guide concerned will, in future, check around his vehicle, before making any track identification.
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