Cheetah Update: Samantha

From your last update on Samantha, we’d like to tell you a bit more about her and what she has been doing over the past six-month period.

As you know, Samantha, her sister Carey and their brother, Mr. Big, were rescued and brought to CCF in 2003. Carey did not survive due to health problems and Mr. Big and other young male cheetahs living with their sisters as a group of orphaned cubs were separated from each other when they reached sexual maturity.

Samantha shares her enclosure with Tempesta, Luna and Cleo. In order to prepare for her annual physical, Samantha was given markered meat so that her scat could be identified and collected for research analysis. A large piece of meat was tossed to her in the enclosure and each day the race was on with her, Tempesta, Luna and sometimes Cleo, in hot pursuit. As they became accustomed to the game, they would each get their respective positions at the approach of the keeper, with Samantha posed like an Olympic sprinter in the starting block. The chase, as each gets one piece of meat, while the others run after whoever has the first piece frequently go on for several minutes, with the cats often reaching full speed.