Cheetah Hunt

If you were to ask me to pick a highlight of this entire trip, I’d have to pick today.

After yesterday’s beautiful lion sighting we figured there was no way to top that experience. However, Walter proved us wrong. We had an early start for our game drive @ 6:30AM, driving around for about 1-2 hours not seeing much and wondering what we were looking for. Drove around saw some giraffes and learned that trees can actually communicate with one another. One tree can let the others know that there’s a giraffe coming through and the others will start producing unpleasant taste in the leaves to ward off the giraffe. Unlike elephants who are non-discriminate eaters, giraffes will get turned off by unpleasant tasting leaves.

The first new animal we saw was a steenbuck.

Look at those ears…

Shortly after we came upon a cheetah family of 4 – mom with 3 cubs.

From the very moment we saw this family we noticed that the mom was looking around for prey and not paying the cubs any mind. The cubs (especially 2 of the 3) were just chasing and jostling with each other.

They even stumbled upon a tortoise and didn’t know what to make of it.

But this cub felt a little intimidated by the non-moving tortoise.

Another jeep had radioed that they were waiting for a cheetah hunt elsewhere. Walter asked if we wanted to go to that spot, or follow this family which the mom appeared to be looking for food. Obviously no one knew what was best, so I said, “what do you think?” Walter decided to follow this family for 10 minutes and see what would happen, and if nothing happened we’d go to the other site. Well, 10 minutes turned into an hour and a half. We kept following the family, and I was dozing off in the jeep (my way of not thinking about how full my bladder was at that moment).

Cubs following mom…

As we were hanging out in the jeep, we noticed that the cubs suddenly became very still and well behaved. No more romping around, but staying close to mom and paying attention to what she was focusing on.

What they were looking at was a herd of Thomson gazelles. The cheetahs stayed in their spot not moving for a good 10-15 minutes. All of a sudden the mom took off, the gazelles scattered in all different directions, and my heart was pounding.

In 10 seconds the hunt was over.

I thought I would be sad watching a kill, but I guess spending an hour and a half with a cheetah family, I started rooting for the mom to catch something for the family to eat. I also realized that this is nature, there is absolutely nothing cruel about this. It’s all about survival. Only in human society do we artificially allow all to survive.

The mom didn’t immediately eat, as we were told that her brain was still engorged with blood during the chase and that she had to allow the blood to dissipate before she could eat.

Dragging the gazelle to a safer spot – Cheetahs will often abandon their kill if threatened by other animals such as the hyenas or lions.

The cubs also waited before pouncing on the gazelle, “practicing and honing” their skills.

Mom kept watch while the cub tried its hand.

Apparently watching a cheetah hunt is not a daily event. Walter told us that he gets to see it once a week, and only if the people in the jeep are patient and willing to sit and wait for hours. That patience certainly paid off for us, and this was exactly what Joe wanted to see on this trip.

By this point, all of our bladders were about to burst, so it was off to find a private spot to go “bushy bushy”.

After seeing the cheetah’s morning hunt, coming across a lioness on the road side seemed so common place.