CONSERVATION & ENVIRONMENT NEWS Mount Camdeboo Secures Top Spots in Cheetah Conservation Stakes MOUNT Camdeboo, the private game reserve in South Africa’s vast and spectacular Great Karoo region owned by the Buchanan family, has recorded not one but two wins in the race to save wild cheetah from extinction. Both success stories involve animals born in captivity – including two brothers handreared in Britain – and are in the process of being “wilded”. The cheetah, Acinonyx jubatus, has been declared a vulnerable species by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). With fewer than 7000 animals remaining in the world, only 1000 exist in the wild. Most are in South Africa’s two largest game reserves, the Kruger and Kgalagadi National Parks, and can be regarded as healthy populations. The remaining 350 are spread between 50 smaller game reserves and it is these animals that are most at risk. In the wild, 90 percent of cheetah cubs die in their first three months. Half fall victim to other predators and the rest die from infections which their immune systems, weakened by in-breeding, are unable to overcome. Overcoming genetic homogeneity is a focus of an Endangered Wildlife Trust initiative, the Cheetah Metapopulation Project, in which Mount Camdeboo Private Nature Reserve actively participates. Partnering with Mount Camdeboo are Ashia Cheetah Conservation from South Africa and the Aspinall Foundation in Britain. Ashia is a not-for-profit organisation that tests and treats captive-born cheetah for disease and malnutrition. Their DNA is also mapped. Four-year-old brothers Nairo and Saba were donated to Mount Camdeboo by the Aspinall Foundation. They arrived in South Africa last February from a zoo in England, the first cheetah born in Britain to return to their African roots. Saba was (of necessity) hand-reared by Victoria Aspinall, wife of Aspinall Foundation chairman Damian. 170 responsible traveller
The Aspinall Foundation’s commitment is to conservation, through captive breeding education and reintroduction. As an animal charity, the foundation is working in some of the world’s most fragile environments to save endangered animals and return them to the wild. In South Africa, the Aspinall Foundation was founded in 1995 with their first reintroduction of eastern black rhino. They became the first charity to send a brown hyena born in the UK back to Africa. In more recent years, they have rescued elephants, giraffes and antelopes and have achieved another world first in conservation for sending a pair of UK born cheetah, Nairo and Saba, back to the wild. “Our relationship with the Aspinall Foundation is based on respect and
