Dr. Laurie Marker's Spring European Tour

I had a very fast turnaround to the airport with less than three days home from the UAE  heading off to Europe.  However, we had a German TV crew at CCF filming for their show “Waisenhaus für wilde Tiere” so we anesthetized and brought to the clinic D’Artagnan, one of our male cheetahs, who needed treatment for an injured leg.

My European Tour began with a lecture to conservation biology students at Kent University through the help of Niki Rust, one of my PhD students, and several meetings with her professors. The next day was the big CCF UK fundraising event at the Royal Institution in London with Jonathan and Angela Scott from Big Cat Diary. The night was a success for the cheetah with over 200 people joining us!

At the Royal Institution in London

In London I was invited to the Illegal Wildlife Trade reception, convened by the British Government. I met with colleagues and government official from across 50 counties. CCF collaborated with ZSL’s (Institute of Zoology) Cheetah & Wild Dog Conservation Planning Process with a poster highlighting the illegal pet trade on cheetah.

I then traveled to France, where, in Paris, I met with past volunteers and supporters. I then headed to La Fleché with Catherine Ebbs-Perin, the president of our French support group Amifelin, for a media interview and then a private dinner with CCF supporters, hosted by Pasquel Fournie from Fous de Nature at ‘Moulin des Season’.  The next day, over 100 people attended our CCF Cheetah Conference and film viewing hosted by Pasquel Fournie.

In La Fleché, France

My next stop in France was Nantes Veterinary School. Annually, CCF has interns that come from this school and we hope that many more will come to Namibia.

When I arrived in Holland, long-time supporter and my close friends the Louwman family of Wassenaar Wildlife Breeding Centre, picked me up from the airport and took me to a lovely dinner. I was able to meet with Simone Echardt from our support organization, Stitching SPOTS. The next day, I went to Van Hall University in Leuwarden where I was greeted by over 100 students and a number of past interns. It was great to reconnect with them.

With the Louwman Family

At Van Hall University

I then went to Germany to meet our German cheetah colleagues from AGA, Birgit Braun and Teresia Rebitschko. We had several meetings including a meeting with Namibian Tourism Board and with Roland Melisch, the Director of TRAFFIC’s Africa & Europe programs where we talked about the rising problems around illegal live trade of cheetah.

Heading out of the continent, I was given a special behind the scenes tour of the Frankfurt airport detection dog training program, which includes using the detection dogs to find, among other things, wildlife and wildlife products. 

As I arrived home I met up with Ryan Sucaet (Assistant Cheetah Keeper) and Matti Nghikembua (Senior Ecologist) with a film crew from German TV’s educational programme “pur+” at Erindi Private Game Reserve for the rerelease of Athena into the wild. The next day, Ryan reported that Athena had settled well and had already made a wildebeest calf kill.

With all my travels, it is nice to be back home in Namibia.

Many Cheetah Purrs,

Laurie

HUMANS FOR CHEETAHS

This month we are launching a new initiative called HUMANS FOR CHEETAHS.  Cheetah Conservation Fund created a team that can be part of any CCF approved charity team around the country for runners, walkers, bikers, and other racers who want to participate in athletic events and raise money to help save the cheetah by supporting CCF.  

Dr. Laurie Marker and Honorary HUMANS FOR CHEETAHS Chairperson Jack Hanna invite you to join the first HUMANS FOR CHEETAHS team in Portland, Oregon on Sunday, May 18, 2014 as they run or walk in the Portland Rock ‘n’ Roll Half Marathon.  Join as a virtual team member and receive all the team benefits, even if you can’t join us in person. 

HUMANS FOR CHEETAHS Honorary Chairperson, Jack Hanna.Recognized around the country as America's favorite zookeeper, Jack Hanna is Director Emeritus of the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, a conservationist, author, television personality, and lifelong adventurer.   We are very happy to have Jack Hanna supporting our new HUMANS FOR CHEETAHS initiative. 

This is our first charity team event in what is planned to be a series of HUMANS FOR CHEETAHS athletic events around the country, raising awareness and money to save the cheetah in the wild by engaging in outdoor activities like running, walking or biking.    

Want to join the team? Go to:  http://www.cheetah.org/humansforcheetahs for details on the event and how to join in the fun in Portland. We are pleased to be an official charity partner of the Portland Rock 'n' Roll Half Marathon. 

In exchange for donating or raising $250 for CCF, we will cover the cost of your registration as a HUMANS FOR CHEETAHS team member in the Portland Rock ‘n’ Roll Half Marathon. There are all kinds of ways you can raise money, but we’ve set up an online campaign with Crowdrise to help you!

As part of the HUMANS FOR CHEETAHS team, you’ll be invited to a special team party May 17^th. Meet fellow team members and be inspired by a cheetah ambassador.  To show your team pride, you get a Nike dri-fit team shirt.

Coming from out of town?  Team members may stay at The Paramount Hotel in Portland and receive a 25% discount for a rate of $149.50 per night plus tax on May 17 and May 18.

http://www.portlandparamount.com

But the great news is that you can be a member of HUMANS FOR CHEETAHS, even if you don’t want to run a half marathon. Become a Virtual Team member, and receive all the benefits of a team member, just by raising money for CCF.

And there are even more ways you can get involved.  You can support a team member by donating to their fundraising effort. For as little as $10 you can make a difference to an athlete looking to help win the race against extinction. Go to our team page at Crowdrise here.

http://www.crowdrise.com/humansforcheetahs/fundraiser/cheetahconservationf. You can even use a personal milestone like a birthday or anniversary to  adopt a team member.  Ask people to support the HUMANS FOR CHEETAHS team in lieu of gifts.

The most important part of our new HUMANS FOR CHEETAHS effort is that we’d like to see more teams, in more sports activities in more cities. Contact beth@cheetah.org if you would like to coordinate a HUMANS FOR CHEETAHS team in your city.  

As is always the case, an effort like this doesn’t happen without the help of some awesome humans.  Teresa Delaney, a Trustee Emeritus of CCF has been spearheading this project with Co-Chair Dave Bell.  Dylan Lee and Andy Prince, who work at Wieden + Kennedy Advertising Agency, donated their time and amazing talent to create our beautiful logo and are helping with CCF’s messaging of the event.  We would also like to thank Ecotrust and Foot Traffic for their support.

If you are interested in becoming a team sponsor, please contact Teresa Delaney at teresa@cheetah.org

ABOUT THE ROCK ‘N’ ROLL HALF MARATHON IN PORTLAND:

For more information about the Portland Rock 'n' Roll Half Marathon course and other details, go to:

http://runrocknroll.competitor.com/portland?gclid=CJmZx-aznLwCFRFyQgodvxIAMA

CCF in the United Arab Emirates

In late May and early June 2013, CCF’s Assistant Directors, Dr. Anne Schmidt-Küntzel and Patricia Tricorache joined me in the UAE where we spent 10 days. The purpose of our trip was two-fold, one was to lecture for the Emirates Natural History Group in three locations and the other was to network with cheetah breeding facilities and veterinarians, where several other lectures were given. Consequently, during our discussions with vets and the main captive cheetah facilities, all felt that a workshop on cheetah health issues, husbandry, necropsies, and banking of genetic and reproductive samples would be very useful. 

 

On the 29th of January, Dr. Anne Schmidt-Kuntzel, Ryan Sucaet, CCF’s Research Assistant and Cheetah Keeper and I, returned to the UAE and headed to Al Ain for a half-day conference hosted by The President’s Affairs Management of Nature Conservation (MNC) Facility. The conference covered topics such as captive cheetah care and management, health and disease, genetics and genome resource banking (GRB), including semen collection and techniques. 

  

We then traveled to four locations to conduct collections and training at individual facilities. In Al Ain we worked on three male cheetahs with their veterinary and research team in order to collect blood, measurements, and successfully bank sperm from two of their cats. Our next day took us to Emirates Park Zoo where we worked up one male, collected another sample for our GRB and trained their vets and husbandry team on our methodology. 

 

Our fourth day was our most triumphant: we worked on 11 male cheetahs at Sheik Buttie’s private breeding facility in Dubai. We were able to work with the manager and vet from this facility, the vet from Sharjah and the manager from Wadi Al Safa. After a 15-hour workday, we banked over 25 semen samples from eight of the cheetahs. 

 

Al Bustan hosted a hands-on workshop on the 2nd of February, where we trained more veterinarians and staff of several institutions within the UAE.

We headed out on the 4th of February after attending the first day of the 15th annual Conservation Workshop for the Biodiversity of Arabia held at the Breeding Centre for Endangered Arabian Wildlife in Sharjah, which brought together international conservationists from the Arabian Peninsula working towards strategies of IUCN wildlife re-introductions, translocations and how to apply this to various species of this region. In addition, a captive care workshop and small mammal survey techniques were also topics during the conference.

 

Overall, we worked up 18 male cheetahs and initiated the beginning of the UAE’s Genome Resource Bank and trained the veterinarians and research staff from over 10 facilities in the country.

Dr. Laurie Marker
Cheetah Conservation Fund

Meet Lucky!

We would like you to meet Lucky! This sweet well-maintained boy was a working dog on a resettled farm where he loved watching over his goats and sheep. Unfortunately, when his herder, livestock, and him were crossing a road, he was hit by a truck. This was not due to negligence of the herder but was just an accident, and thankfully the herder got him to the veterinarian as soon as possible. He sustained quite a few severe injuries and was taken to a veterinarian clinic in Otjwarongo and then transferred to a clinic in Windhoek. In Windhoek he had to receive surgery to have his femoral head removed on his left side. Both his front and back right legs were broken in the accident, so those were splinted as well.

Despite these injuries, Lucky has been a real trooper and has been walking better than we expected. He is very patient with all his bandage changes, which must be changed daily. The clinic team and numerous volunteers/interns are always happy to give Lucky a short walk to help him gain some muscle strength back in his legs and so he can relieve himself. You can normally find him out in the office relaxing on his mattress pad with volunteers, staff, and interns working close by. He has been receiving a lot of tender love and care while he recovers and due to his young age (7-8 months) he is very resilient.

Lucky’s recovery will take many months, but here at CCF we have high hopes for him, and will of course keep you updated on his progress. If you would like to support Lucky and help him receive the care he needs, please consider donating to CCF to help cover the costs of his recovery.

Intern Story - Mariska Bijsterbosch

Hi, my name is Mariska Bijsterbosch. at the beginning of September I came to the Cheetah Conservation Fund to do an internship as part of my study Wildlife Management, which I study in the Netherlands. It seemed quite scary at the beginning, so far and long from home, but I quickly felt really welcome and at home.

Since I have been here I have done so many different activities, too much to mention them all. I took care of cheetahs, dogs, horses and goats, did administrative tasks and went out to count game. I even made cheese and soap, something that I never would have expected! I also had a special project, which was a hair analysis project. In cheetah scat you can find hair, and when you examine these hairs under the microscope, you can find out what species the cheetah has been eating. Most hairs from different species have a unique pattern. However it is sometimes very difficult to distinguish this pattern, and here is where my project came in. Instead of the hair pattern, I looked at cross sections of the hairs, and tried to find out if this is an easier way of determining species. It turned out that for some species cross sections are indeed a better method to use.

                                          

The highlight of my stay at CCF was the capture and release of cheetahs into the wild. During my time here five cheetahs were released, which is the reason why CCF exists, to keep cheetahs in the wild! I also helped with tracking the cheetahs, who wore GPS/VHF collars. In the field, we start with the GPS point and from there you try to track them with radio telemetry. Sadly we did not find one that day, but nevertheless it was a great experience!

                                          

My internship is almost over and after these five months it will be very strange to go back to the ‘normal’ life. I have learned many things at CCF, and made many new friends. One thing is for sure, although my time is almost running out here, I will come back!

Minja, Emma, and Jacominja Release: Part 1

Jacominja

When the Leopard Pen Gate opened on Monday 23rd December, Minja, Jacominja and Emma were about to face life on their own, in the wild. Each of them had been fitted with a GPS tracking collar which regularly takes a new GPS location and transmits the new data back to us early each day. Each collar also has a VHF transmitter allowing us to track and find them on foot too. There was a huge amount of work that went on in the build up to this event and there is still much more to do. This is their story so far, and we will continue to keep you posted with their progress in the future.


Minja:

Minja left the pen at the first available opportunity using the nearby road to explore the area and unfortunately we didn’t receive an update from her collar until the 27 December 2013. On the 29 December we spent the entire day looking for her and still had no good sightings. From the data sent to us from the GPS collar, we learned that on 30 December she moved from CCF land onto a neighbouring farm briefly and then back onto CCF land. We finally got the first proper sighting of her on 4 January 2014 on CCF land. On 5 January we found her again and fed her a large meal because we hadn’t yet had any confirmation that she had made a kill, however she did not look thin! Overall Minja seems to be doing well and is definitely independent, but we will continue to monitor her closely to ensure her well-being.

Minja

Emma:

After the gates opened, Emma decided to stick around for a few days until she finally decided to leave the pen on 26 January 2013. From Leopard Pen she moved to an area relatively close by and we were able to find and feed her on 28 January. However, we spent the whole of New Year’s Eve looking for her and unfortunately were unsuccessful. According to the GPS data from her collar, she moved onto the neighbouring farm on 1 January 2014 and stayed until 2 January. On 3 January, Emma found us. We were about to drive through a gate, and she suddenly appeared behind the vehicle. It’s likely that she heard the feeding vehicle and had been following us for some time. We took the opportunity to move her back into Bellebeno, our re-wildling game camp to an artificial waterhole where we also fed her. She had to follow the car for about 2km so she earned her food for the day. The next day, we found her nearby where we left her as she had made her first confirmed kill! As soon as we approached, she picked up the kill and carried it off but we are quite sure it was a steenbok. On 6 January we found her yet again on another kill, which was also a steenbok. We are very happy with Emma’s success in this release, as she has already made two confirmed kills. We will continue to monitor her closely, but have high hopes for her future in the wild.

Emma on her first steenbok kill

Emma on 6 January 2014, photo by Patrick Viehoever

Emma on her steenbok kill on 6 January 2014, photo by Patrick Viehoever

Jacominja:

Like Emma, Jacominja decided to hang around in the enclosure for a few days before venturing out. On 26 December 2013, however, she left and moved to one of CCF’s other farms. Incredibly, on 28 December 2013, we found her on her first (known) kill, which was an adult male duiker. For having been out of the enclosure less than 48 hours, it’s impressive that Jacominja had already made a kill. On 30 December we found Jacominja again and decided to go ahead and feed her in case she was struggling to make a kill. We are teaching all our interns how to radio-track and on 1 January, one of our Dutch interns, Marianne, tracked Jacominja and found her. We decided to feed her again, just in case. A couple of days later, we found her on other kill, which was a young warthog and then again on 4 January, we found she had killed a steenbok. On 6 January she moved but we found her and again fed her. Jacominja is clearly doing well on her own in the wild with three confirmed kills, but like the others, we will continue to monitor her closely just to ensure she is coping well with her new life in the wild.

Jacominja on 1 January 2014

feeding Jacominja on 6 January 2014

Marianne tracking

Intern Story - Ben Spearing

I have now spent ten weeks in Namibia at the Cheetah Conservation Fund, and I look back on my time and wonder how I was able to experience as much as I did in the short time I was here. The list of jobs and activities I have taken part in during my time here is much too long to list. The variety of work I have done ranges from scanning files into a database, to giving a cheetah eye drops. To be fair, much of the work that an intern does includes administrative tasks and cleaning the animal pens, but the activities that one could only do here at CCF make it all worth it. Being a part of releasing two cheetahs into the wild, performing a necropsy, counting herds of antelope on game drives, and observing cheetah surgeries are occurrences that can only be experienced at CCF. The Cheetah Conservation Fund does anything and everything it can to help the cheetah, and it takes hard work and passion from a lot of people to get the job done.

watching the dentist work on one of the cheetahs 

three oryx visiting a waterhole during a 12-hour waterhole count

This organization is something special. The staff members at CCF care deeply for the animals here and conservation as a whole. Saving the cheetah is not an easy job, and it does not have set hours. They sacrifice the time that they have off of work to come in and help whenever it is needed. It was truly motivating to see people from all over the world come together in Namibia to help save the cheetah as a species, and their dedication has reminded me why I pursue an education in conservation biology. This internship has only reinforced my career goals, and with the experience and work ethic I have gained here I hope I can move on to make a difference in the world of conservation.

giving the "centre feeding talk" to visitors

Volunteer Story - Elizabeth Corse

A few kilometers outside Windhoek, Brian (moves like a spring, permanently sunburned, London accent thick as the London fog) announced there were baboons in the road. I saw a few black-ish lumps that magically became, as we drew closer, actual baboons – and lots of them. Over the next few hours there were warthogs, eland, goats and sheep and cattle, jackals, steenbok and a mongoose, plus hornbills and various hawks, all surviving in a world of dry riverbeds, dry grasses and thorny bushes.

First impressions set the stage of an experience. Brian’s energy, Matti’s enthusiasm and the flourishing announcement, to our small van-load, “Ladies and gentlemen, I give you – the Waterberg,” drew up the curtain on a transformative two weeks. A few hours later, I was sitting down to dinner, gazing past a twin-peaked termite mound at that Waterberg, a magnificent and mysterious plateau of striated rock, as it reflected the brilliant fire colors of the setting sun. And it kept getting better from there.

My volunteer experience at CCF was mundane and extraordinary, tiring and invigorating, fascinating and even more fascinating. I raked goat yards and cheetah pens, fed and walked dogs, listened to a ruckus of bird calls every morning, and one day spent twelve-plus hours in a hide, counting zebra, tracking warthogs and trying to determine the ages and sexes of various oryx.

I have fed a lot of dogs in my life, but I’ve never before measured out Ultra Dog Superwoof Ostrich & Rice kibble. I have fed a few cats, but never before thrown two-kilo chunks of donkey meat over a three-meter fence for a cheetah. Three of these cats, purring together, sound as loud and rumbling as test-time at a Boeing factory – but so much lovelier.

When they play, they chase a scrap of cloth on a string – but at 60 or 70 kilometers an hour, tails swinging to the side as they take the corners at speed. They stalk, they wait, they pounce, and when they catch that rag they hold onto it – sometimes carrying it off under a tree, and trading it reluctantly when Juliette or Jenny offers a meat cube on a very long handled spoon.

On my second afternoon at CCF, after the amazement of traveling a country that has scores of deeply-carved rivers without a drop of water, I had the joy of watching the clouds mass, and hoping – seeing them darken, and hoping, hoping – feeling the wind cool and quicken, and crossing fingers – celebrating the first few drops with caught breath – seeing, feeling, hearing, smelling the rain take hold in earnest and exhaling joyfully, arms outstretched, face to the sky.

On my last morning at CCF, I watched the sky lighten above the Waterberg from a dusty, green plastic chair outside my rondavel, and then catch pink fire, radiating molten gold, copper, rose gold as scores of birds chirped, sang, called, cooed and whistled, and a kilometer or two away several small but powerful roosters crowed their heads off. A tiny duiker – unmarked, narrow ears instead of the steenboks’ oversized, stripey ones – skipped over and nibbled the ground under the acacia tree maybe ten meters from me.

Any one of those experiences would have been worth the 17-hour flight, and I haven’t even mentioned bouncing along in a well-used bush vehicle while Matti spots ostrich 300 meters away, or Chavoux eloquently catalogues causes of human-wildlife conflict, or Rob spots a bit of rhino scat he can show us – note the precise 45-degree angle at which the rhino’s teeth cut through twigs. Reaching into Amos’s head-cone to provide the ear scratches he appreciates so obviously, fending off curious goats, ferrying meat to the “boys”, tweezing ten hairs of various sizes and colors from the remnants of a scat sample. The two weeks contained about a year’s worth of new experiences.

Heading home, about a hundred miles out of Dulles Airport, the pilot announced that the temperature in Washington, DC, was six degrees below zero centigrade, or 21 degrees Fahrenheit. It seemed unreal. The Namibian savannah needs rain, and all my thoughts are of dark clouds lowering – and when can I go back.

Elizabeth Corse
CCF EarthWatch Volunteer