LOSERS IN COMPETITION FOR LAND

The natural habitat of the cheetah is shrinking. They are being flushed out of the wild and forced into captivity.

The white-hot Karoo sun beats down on the crates standing in the veld. Inside are six wild cheetah, trapped by farmers in Namibia because they posed a threat to their livestock.

After a 3 000km journey, the cheetah are off-loaded and ready to be released into enclosures at Oudtshoorn's Cango Wildlife Ranch.

Only two sounds break the silence: the high-pitched whine of cicadas and a low, deep-throated growl.

It's a sound that makes the hair rise on the back of the neck, as if it triggers some prehistoric memory deep in our DNA of when we were the hunted rather than the hunters.

Through the wire mesh the cheetah's amber eyes flash as it hisses and spits. Its brain is not equipped to make sense of what has happened, and its fear translates into aggression.

Just a short while ago these cheetah were running wild in Namibia. It may seem cruel to fence in the wild animals, but for the cheetah, the choice was either a cage or a bullet.

Said Mr Andrew Eriksen, owner of the ranch: "Once before, we got cheetah from a farmer in Namibia. He had trapped nine and asked us which ones we wanted. We chose eight and he went up to the ninth and shot it."

It would be easy to accuse the farmer of cruelty, or of destroying wild animals in the interests of his bank balance, but the reality is that each of us who eats meat had a finger on that trigger.

The cheetah's plight is an example of the escalating conflict between people and wild animals, where ever-increasing human populations encroach deeper and deeper into the world's wild places, slashing, burning, ploughing up or fencing in natural habitats, thereby destroying the "homes" of thousands of creatures.

Wild carnivores are enemies to stock farmers, who lose hundreds of rands every time a calf or lamb is taken. To the cheetah, whose natural prey has been shot out or driven off in many areas, livestock presents an easy substitue.

Conflict between humans and wild animals is not new and dates back to prehistoric times, but the difference today is that there is no longer a balance. Humans have tipped the scales by sheer numbers and the way things are going, the wilderness and its creatures are likely to be the losers.

Is there any point, from a conservation perspective, in rescuing wild animals like cheetah and keeping them in captivity? Eriksen believes there is.

"We breed them here because if the wild population is wiped out then at least we will have these in captivity to restock areas. But putting them back into the wild is not our primary aim, because there is nowhere to put them. All the game reserves are fully stocked with cheetah and we can't release them outside reserves, because of the competition with farmers."

The ranch offers captive-bred rather than wild cheetah to registered zoos, but if there are no zoos that need them they are simply kept at the Oudtshoorn ranch.

The breeding cheetah enclosures are not open to the public, but the ranch has several hand-reared individuals on show, along with puma, lion, pygmy hippo and crocodile which the public pays to view.

For an extra R25, people can pet two cheetah, while listening to their loud purring and even being licked by the big cats.

Director of the Endangered Wildlife Trust, Dr John Ledger, does not see anything wrong with cheetah breeding facilities, but says they are mainly business ventures which do little for conservation.

"Re-introducing captive-bred cheetah into the wild has not been successful because they don't know how to hunt. And because they have imprinted on humans, they do things like chasing people on bicycles.

"They can't live outside protected areas because of man's livestock activities. The answer doesn't lie in putting them in cages, but in trying to get back some of the low-grade unproductive agricultural land and turning it into nature reserves where these carnivores can live naturally," Ledger said.

This has been done on the border of North West Province and Botswana, where 70 000ha of low-grade cattle ranching land has recently been converted into a game reserve, with the consent of the land-owners and the surrounding communities and restocked with cheetah, lion and elephant. All the former owners are shareholders of the new Madikwe Park.

Said Ledger: "This is the real conservation challenge - to get back some of the unproductive agricultural land so that these species can live freely."

Melanie Gosling

Webmaster's note:
I highlighted sections in the article which I wholeheartedly agree with. I would like to thank Melanie Gosling and Dr John Ledger for making such important statements. These are facts we need to start realising: animals need to live freely if they are to survive as a species and their land is rapidly running out. We need to solve the problems, instead of continuing to ease the symptoms with methods such as captive breeding. It is now well-known that this is no solution for conservation and captive-breeding programmes are very often merely money-making ventures. Which is not to say that they may not be, in certain cases, essential as back-up plans when extinction is imminent. They simply should not be looked upon as the best way to solve conservation problems.