Finding cheetah signs

Category: Cheetah | Date: Feb 18 2008 | By: admin

This photo is of a cheetah scent marking tree. It is one of the cheetahs under the tree. I wanted to point out the type of vegetation these cheetahs are living in too.

Here you can see how high game fences force animals to walk along the fences, therefore making it likely that spoor density is higher here.

9 Responses to “Finding cheetah signs”

THERESA SISKIND, on 18 Feb 2008

Rox, it certainly does and so hilly too. Now, I can imagine them hiding in the bushes and pouncing. I posted a comment on the cheetahs hunting like leopards at Dr. Laurie Marker’s blog, I’ll have to leave another comment so she can check these photos ou for herself. I guess the fences are a mixed blessing for these cheetahs. Besides the fence line, what other places are high spoor counts found, watering holes, maybe?

limpopocarnivores, on 19 Feb 2008

It is very different from “typical” cheetah habitat, but they seem to thrive. One female cheetah we released had come from the Kalahari, and so presumably learned to hunt in a more “normal” way. She took only 10 days to have learned to kill in the new condiditons. She actually ended up showing a marked preference for Bushbuck, which she wouldn’t have known where she came from.
In my experience, waterholes are surprsingly not the hotspot of activity you would expect. We have very little joy with camera-traps there. When I was tracking Cheetahs every day, I found they very rarely drank, and presumably fulfilled most of their moisture requirements from blood. We are not necessarily looking for areas of high spoor density, but rather looking at the relative difference between the fences and away from them, so that we can replicate the technique as accurately as possible elsewhere.

limpopocarnivores, on 19 Feb 2008

The cheetah I refer to was on a previous project I worked on. This current project does not involve any introduction or translocation of animals at all.

THERESA SISKIND, on 19 Feb 2008

Well, maybe fear of other predators at the watering holes, as well. Interesting you mentioned that cheetahs get most of their hydration requirements from meat. Saw a documentary, filmed in Namibia,where they filmed 2 males during a prolonged drought. Both of them eventually died and it was caught on film, horrific.

F. J. PECHIR, on 19 Feb 2008

thank you for the post!

limpopocarnivores, on 19 Feb 2008

I haven’t seen that documentary, but it sound awful. Fear of predators is certainly a plausible theory, but I think unlikely in that case as the reserve in question had no lions and no spotted hyaenas, which are both believed to influence cheetah ecology.

F. J. PECHIR, on 19 Feb 2008

Hi Rox and Theresa, It is well documented through cheetah´s habitat that this species does not need to take water regularly as, for example, lions do. The cheetah, as Rox have said, fulfill its main liquid necesities from its prey´s fluids, but is not uncommon to see cheetahs drinking water when the opportunity araises. A very long and strong drought is needed to see some cheetah died for the lack of water, being more usual (but still rare) to register some case of cheetahs starving to death if a severe injure is present or if some youngs loss their mother before they have learned to hunt.

F. J. PECHIR, on 19 Feb 2008

I mean to say that it is still rare that a cheetah died for lack of food if it is in good condition, because is common to hear about young or adult cheetahs that died if they, for some reason, don´t be able to catch some prey.

THERESA SISKIND, on 20 Feb 2008

Yes, I should have added that many animals were inmpacted by the drought and moved on, decreasing the availability of prey for these cheetahs. The documentary aired on Nat Geo several years ago, wish I could remember the title!

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