New cheetah for Rietvlei
The cheetah will help to regulate the prey population in the reserve.
A male cheetah was reintroduced to the Rietvlei Nature Reserve on Friday.
The project was run in partnership with the Endangered Wildlife Trust, based in Modderfontien.
The 3 800 hectare reserve is situated between Johannesburg and Pretoria and has not had a cheetah on the property for two years.
The cheetah will help to regulate the prey population in the reserve.
A female cheetah is currently being sought to join the male in early 2015.
The first reintroduction of cheetahs in Rietvlei included only two males in March 2003.
These males lived until the age of 15 on Rietvlei and died during 2012/2013 from age-related factors.
In 2013, Rietvlei contacted the EWT’s Cheetah Metapopulation Project with a request for new cheetahs as prey populations on the reserve were approaching unsustainable levels.
“An effective way to increase cheetah numbers and to increase their range in South Africa is to reintroduce them onto small, fenced reserves,” said Mr Vincent van der Merwe, the EWT’s Cheetah Metapopulation Project coordinator.
Rietvlei is one of the reserves that forms part of the EWT’s Cheetah Metapopulation Project. With a rapid decline in suitable habitats for cheetahs to roam freely in South Africa, the reintroduction of Cheetah into smaller reserves is an effective way to conserve the vulnerable cheetah.
For this reintroduction, a male cheetah was identified from Sanbona Game Reserve, a 54 000ha private game reserve in the Western Cape which has provided cheetahs to several metapopulation reserves over the past few years, including Madikwe, Shamwari,Mabula, Nkomazi and Amakhala.
Any offspring that are produced by the Rietvlei cheetahs will be distributed to other metapopulation reserves in conjunction with the EWT’s project.
“Through the EWT Metapopulation project in South Africa, we have seen considerable growth in cheetah numbers,” Mr van der Merwe said.
The EWT’s Cheetah Metapopulation Project is supported by the National Geographic Big Cats Initiative, Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, Scovill Zoo, St Louis Zoo and Relate Bracelets.
