Cheetah Walk in the Vlei!

Photograph © Tim Smith

First morning back i was lucky to join the AM Cheetah Walk with ranger G.P Britz. We headed out towards the last known location of the “Leopard Pen Boys” four male Cheetahs and with the change in the daylight saving time we used a spotlight for the first 15 minutes of drive. We found a relaxed Brown Hyena just outside the lodge and this seemed to be a good omen for the rest of the trip..

Four New Cheetahs from the CCF

On June 28th 2012, four male cheetahs that had previously been held at the Cheetah Conservation Fund near Otjiwarongo, Namibia, were loaded onto a truck that was headed south to Erindi Private Game Reserve for a re-wildling project. Omdillo, Anakin, Chester, and Obi Wan (aka the “Leopard pen boys”) had lived at CCF for a number of years after they had all been brought in during various times in 2008 from farmers due to supposed livestock depredation. Now was their time for their long-awaited return to freedom!

Female Cheetah Hershey Reaching New Heights

This photo of Hershey, the last female Cheetah from the original Chocolate Sisters was taken on the 24th PM drive by the guides while posing proudly near the airstrip.

The next day she went on to kill a young water-buck not even a kilometer from lodge. This is the second water-buck that we have recorded in a month that she has taken down.

She generally goes for smaller prey like Steenbok, Young Springbuck and Scrub Hares hunting by herself, so a young Water-buck is quite large for her. Probably standing a little bit higher than herself.

We look forward to see much more of Hershey in the future and predict a long and successful lifetime at Erindi Private Game Reserve.

A Quick update on the Cheetahs

The Chocolate Sisters and Chanel are well known to all Erindi fans. The three sisters and another unrelated female from CCF (Cheetah Conservation Fund) were released in January 2011.

Now in April 2012 only two survive being one of the sisters – Hershey and Chanel. Their VHF collars had slowly started to fade out and we needed to recollar them both before

A tribute to Nestlé

NOVEMBER 2011
TEXT: Natasha Britz
PHOTOGRAPH: Henco Bantjes

CCF staff and guests and more recently Erindi have grown to love Chanel and the 3 Chocolate Sister, a group of 4 female cheetah that were relocated into the wild of Erindi in late 2010.

The group has done incredibly well over the past year in their new home even with all the challenges of a new life in the wild among all other large carnivores. The girls have completely sustained themselves hunting mostly oryx calves and they were noted by CCF members to have grown in physical size possibly due to muscles developed during their hunting.

Coco Chanel and the Chocolate Sisters

Weird names for a group of four Cheetahs? You bet – they sure are! But, courtesy of the Cheetah Conservation Foundation,(CCF), we have a group comprising Chanel, Hershey, Nestle and Toblerone roaming free and able to feed themselves right here on Erindi. How did it all happen?