CGTN

 

Masai Mara, Kenya: Cheetah on the Hunt

By Dr Khalid Siddiqui
Ohio

In June 1994 we took our first safari trip to Kenya, Africa. And the first thing we saw was a hunt by a female cheetah with two cubs.

Cheetahs are solitary cats. As they hunt alone, they can bring down only smaller antelopes like Thomson’s gazelle or impala. Also, as they hunt during the day they rely more on their speed than ambush. Because of their lithe body structure, they can turn and twist quickly to match the evading maneuvers of the antelopes. Their non-retractable claws (the only cat with non-retractable claws) give them an added advantage during sprinting. Despite all this, they can't sustain the chase for long, and tire out. So, 40 to 50 percent of their chases fail. They kill their prey by suffocating them. Their jaws are not powerful enough to break the neck of the prey.

As soon as they kill an animal, they drag the carcass under the bushes to hide it from the peering eyes of the ever-present vultures hovering over the plain in search of a kill. After discovering the fresh kill, the vultures start flying in ever tighter and tighter circles over that area. As they hover over the prey, hyenas, jackals, and wild dogs head in its direction. As a solitary hunter, the cheetah can’t defend its prize against a clan of hyenas, or a pack of wild dogs or jackals. That’s why it starts eating the animal as soon as possible, and as much as possible in one sitting, before it loses it. As opposed to lions and other cats who are also scavengers, the cheetah only eats fresh meat. So, it has to hunt every day.

While hunting the female cheetah leaves the cubs hidden in the grass behind. Still 90% of its cubs don’t make it beyond six weeks as they perish from predation by other large predators such as lions and hyenas, or from injuries.

Watch the video. It was shot more than 30 years ago. The quality of the original is still fairly good but deteriorated when I attached the clip to this post. The narration is by my son.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hpm_IAae4Vg41-tRDowTtmmFGz0H__bl/view?usp=sharing