During my stay, I also fed the big cats of Namibia thanks to the mission «Carnivore feeding»! We went to fetch the food of the carnivores which was already ready in a large box, each animal had its own quantity and type of meat. We then took the car to their pens, and we had to throw their meat over the fence. It was impressive because we could see the felines very close, since they came right in front of us, as they waited for their food. It was amazing to see them jump and catch the meat in the air and then tear it apart.
All these felines were in huge enclosures and depended totally on the reserve because they were either wounded and could no longer fend for themselves, or they had lost their mother had become unable to hunt by them-either they had been illegally kept in captivity as pets and had been confiscated from their owner. For example, there was a caracal that was half blind, a cheetah that had only three legs left because of a trap, and another cheetah was very fearful because of the trauma of his mother who had been hit by a car. He was found near his mother’s dead body on the side of the road. The fearful cheetahs mewed and were on the defensive with attack reactions, and the half-blind caracal kept growling.
The females had an implant with hormones to not be able to have offspring, but it was not a definitive procedure. The males they were vasectomized, that is to say they had only the ducts of their testicles cut so that they could not have sperm. They do not castrate them so that they keep their hormones, and so that they do not become lazy and grow fat. This sterilization procedure is put in place because the reserve does not want to have captive babies that depend on man, otherwise it becomes a zoo. Instead, they want to reintegrate animals that will then give birth to young children who will be able to live in nature and hunt for themselves. Their goal is only to offer a peaceful and happy end of life to animals unfairly traumatized.
We had to feed cheetahs, leopards, caracals, lions, hyena and wild dogs, throwing over the fence pieces of meat or whole chickens. Some were getting vitamins or medicine in their meat because they were old.
We fed a lot of cheetahs and wild dogs. The cheetahs were very stealthy and discreet in their way of eating and moving, while the wild dogs were super loud! Before feeding them, we made them run by encouraging them to chase our car. It was amazing to see them running so fast by our side!
The hyena, however, was very fearful, and it was necessary to wait for her to come and get her food. It was not a spotted hyena like the ones in the Disney movie «The Lion King», but a brown hyena! This type of hyena is much more solitary.
There was also a brother and a sister leopard, and several caracals jumping super high to catch the meat! The caracals were really fun, because they fought all the time! The most impressive was still the lions, with a male and two females, their roars were breathtaking! We were right in front of them, separated by a thin barrier that they might even cross if they weren’t so well fed, and we felt really vulnerable. Their bodies were so massive, and their roars so impressive, that it was hard not to feel fascinated and worried at the same time.
We also learned a lot about animals thanks to Matt, a 27-year-old Namibian who has been working at Naankuse reserve for 5 years. He explained to us that the cheetahs had white around their eyes, because it allowed them to see better at night thanks to the reflection of the moon, and that the black features they had before their eyes had the same function as sunglasses for us, because black absorbs the light emitted by the sun. He also told us they have a very bad sense of smell, and that they therefore smell by breathing through the mouth to get the smell on their tongue, so they could identify it thanks to a part of their brain specialized for that. I also learned that cheetahs can’t retract their claws, so they’re always out, because they’re too fast for their brains when they start running, so they don’t have time to think about taking them out. Matt even went into the cheetah cage to give a vitamin to one of them, because cheetahs are easily tamable and don’t attack!
He also told us that the lionesses were in their heat period right now, and that they had to mate with the male every 20 minutes for a week. However, the male being vasectomized, and the females having implants that diffuse hormones, they will not have offspring. He also explained to us that the leopards were really very dangerous, because they could pretend to be nice to get close to the fence, but once they were close to them they suddenly changed character and could attack us. Leopards use their legs to hold food when they eat, unlike cheetahs. I also learned thanks to Matt that caracals can jump up to 2 meters!
Matt told us about two new techniques to preserve endangered species. The first is to contribute to the good cohabitation between humans and animals. If a leopard is on a farmer’s territory, then his herds are threatened. So the leopard will be moved to another location. However, territory is sometimes very large, and there is a strong possibility that another leopard will come to occupy it again. So it’s a limited solution, because it doesn’t prevent other leopards from coming in. Another method also exists: the location of the leopard by GPS, so that the farmer can move his flock each morning according to the place where the leopard is, to be able to cohabit with it and preserve it. This method is very effective and adopted by many farmers. All you have to do is catch the leopard, place a GPS collar on it, and transmit its coordinates to the farmers every morning.
He also told us about a method of legally killing endangered species, preferably an old or sick animal, no longer really able to hunt if it is a feline, so that its territory is ceded to the younger generations. The money given by hunters to kill these animals helps to protect the rest of the species and helps the region economically. Hunting trophies and selling tusks or horns is indeed very expensive. I found it rather surprising and paradoxical to discover that some members of one species could be killed to protect others!
We then went back, we cleaned the boxes where the meat was placed, as well as the car which was full of blood! I was also able to test the «Carnivore feeding» with Meg, a researcher from the reserve who also does HPS tracking. We fed a lot less animals than we did with Matt, and it was much less interesting because she explained less about animals. However with it we made the data entry, we had to enter in an Excel table our observations on the fed animals: the given medicines or vitamins, the eaten or refused food, but also the physical state of the animal and its health. I was surprised to see her give an apple to the hyena of the reserve, “Nana”!
There was also a second mission with felines: «Cheetah run». We had to make four cheetahs play and run, one male and three females, to avoid their sedentary lifestyles. Indeed, this can have several consequences such as increased risk of cardiovascular problems, loss of flexibility in the joints, decreased muscle strength, and decreased bone strength.
First of all, the man in charge of this mission asked us to bring equipment into the car we were going to use. There was rope, and all kinds of things I didn’t know. At the time, I really didn’t understand what this could be used for!
Then, once we reached the enclosure of the four cheetahs, we got out of the car and the man introduced us. The male was called “Kovu”, and the three females were “Amber”, “Athena”, and “Roadie” which was the most suspicious. Roadie was found near his mother’s dead body when she was a baby. His mother had been hit by a car and Roadie remained traumatized for life by this event.
Then we went into the cheetah pen with all the equipment we had brought. I really did not believe my eyes: we were next to the cheetahs, without any fence to separate us, and it was not even risky! This is apparently one of the peculiarities of cheetahs, which make them very popular for illegal adoption as a pet: they are very easy to tame and do not attack men if they are used to it!
So we walked very close to the cheetahs that were following us, and we stopped in the middle of their enclosure. I finally understood what all our equipment was for! We first wrapped the rope around 4 small posts nailed to the ground, and we also had to nail to the ground a battery connected to the wire, as well as make several connections.
After all that, we turned on the battery and we could control it with a remote control. There was a sort of rag that was used as bait hanging from the wire, and when we started the battery, the wire started moving and the bait was spinning. The cheetahs started chasing the bait at full speed, like big cats! It was impressive! I was able to take many beautiful pictures, more than the cheetahs were super close!
These two missions were unforgettable for me. feeding big cats and seeing them from so close was something really impressive, and running cheetahs was a unique experience! I really loved this feeling of participating in animal welfare, rather than coming as a tourist and looking at them passively from afar.