A female cheetah in the Mountain Zebra National Park (MZNP) outside Cradock in the Eastern Cape received a new tracking collar recently, thanks to a generous donation. The collar fitted previously was about to reach the end of its lifespan.
MZNP is currently home to eight cheetahs. Of these, four are collared. MZNP is the only national park offering a cheetah tracking activity, and the animals are the ones that are sought out by activity guides through the use of a VHF telemetry device.
If guests are lucky enough, they could get within 40 metres of one or more cheetahs in their natural habitat. They also help park management to gather ecological data for research purposes that helps in the management of the species.
MZNP first reintroduced cheetah in 2007 with two females from the nearby Samara Game Reserve, after being absent from the plains of the Karoo for 130 years. It is South African National Parks’ policy to reintroduce wildlife species that would have occurred in an area before hunting or habitat loss forced them to local extinction in earlier centuries. Two males were introduced not long after to form a breeding population.
With growing cheetah populations in confined fenced reserves across South Africa, it was decided that a human-mediated metapopulation approach was required to help maintain the genetic and demographic integrity of these isolated populations and ensure their longevity and conservation value.
In 2011 the Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT) developed the Cheetah Metapopulation Project, now known as the Cheetah Range Expansion Project, to do just this.
MZNP has been an important part of this project since its inception. After reintroduction, the cheetah population in the park quickly boomed with the lack of competing predators (lions were only introduced in 2013). As such, there was an urgent need to prevent inbreeding and in 2010 and 2011 a total of 13 cheetahs that had been born in the park were relocated to other reserves.
The latest fitted collar was donated by avid and regular visitors to the park, Anthony and Martine Armstrong, and their family from the Western Cape. This intervention is expected to further support the successful roll-out of a cheetah population management solution implemented at MZNP.
MZNP has been an important contributor to southern Africa’s cheetah conservation efforts. Overall, it has contributed 35 animals to the greater cheetah metapopulation, including important range expansion projects within southern Africa – with cheetah going as far as Malawi and Zambia.
“All cheetahs that are removed from and brought into MZNP are done so strategically with consultation amongst the EWT, Park Management, and SANParks’ ecologists. This ensures that the genetic and demographic integrity of the respective populations are maintained, thus ensuring the conservation value of this population,” SANParks said in a press release.
