Chewbaaka My Life at the Cheeatah Conservation Fund

CHEWBAAKA My Life at the Cheetah Conservation Fund

Dr. Laurie Marker AUTHOR

Jessie Jordan ILLUSTRATOR

CHEWBAAKA Text copyright Š 2017 by Dr. Laurie Marker and Cheetah Conservation Fund Illustrations copyright Š 2017 by Jessie Jordan Published in 2017 by Cheetah Conservation Fund PO Box 2496 Alexandria, VA 22301 All rights reserved in all countries. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission from the publisher except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

Production by Lisa Eng-Lodge, Electra Design Group ISBN 978-1-5136-1701-5 Printed in the United States of America

CHEWBAAKA My Life at the Cheetah Conservation Fund

Dr. Laurie Marker AUTHOR

Jessie Jordan ILLUSTRATOR

Hi there! My name is Chewbaaka (the French spelling). I was named after the big hairy Wookiee who flew the spaceship in Star Wars. I lived at the Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF) in Namibia since I was three weeks old. Dr. Laurie Marker told people how I could help guide Earth’s future.

I was raised by Dr. Laurie Marker, the Founder and Director of CCF. At CCF I was surrounded by friends: human staff members and other cheetahs. We have a nice big area to live in, and can run like the wind.

CCF is a research and education center where the staff studies and teaches about the cheetah. They tell everyone about me and wild cheetahs too. As their cheetah ambassador, I got to meet many people.

Cheetahs are built for speed Cheetahs are the fastest land animal and can reach speeds of 70 miles per hour. As they run, one foot touches the ground at a time. At two points of their stride, when they are all stretched out and all the way doubled up, none of their feet touch the ground.

Today they are running their fastest race: against extinction. Cheetahs don’t want to go the way of the dinosaur, being gone forever.

AFRICA

Because cheetahs are calm cats, humans began keeping us as pets nearly 5,000 years ago. People love us for our beauty, speed, and hunting skills. Egyptian pharaohs carved beautiful pictures of us. In India and Europe, royalty used us for an ancient sport called “coursing� which means hunting by sight. We were treated like kings, but sadly, so many cheetahs were tamed to become pets for royal families.

Because so many cheetahs were taken as pets, there were too few in the wild. Compared to all the places cheetahs once lived, we now only live in a few areas in the world. Our population is very small.

The first couple months of my life were a big struggle for survival. When I was two weeks old, a farmer disturbed my family. He set a cage trap for us and the trap door accidentally fell on my brother and sister and they were killed. My mother was not in the trap with us.

The farmer was scared that I might die without my mother and he gave me cow’s milk to drink. It made me very sick, as it is not the right milk for cheetahs.

The farmer caught my mum, and I was still very sick. The farmer brought both of us to CCF. They put a radio-collar on my mum and released her back into the wild. The collar helped the CCF staff see where she was moving.

I was too sick to go out into the wild with mum, so Dr. Laurie nursed me back to health. She became my new mum. Dr. Laurie had to feed me every three hours with special milk and vitamins to make me well.

Chewbaaka’s mother’s home range movements on the farmlands.

Soon I was feeling better. I grew up with Dr. Laurie and met my best friend (and new sister), Koya. Koya was a two-month-old Anatolian shepherd/ Kangal livestock guarding dog, and we adopted each other as brother and sister. Koya and I played together all the time and chased around the garden.

I soon learned that I could trip her with my front paws, and that was really fun! Dr. Laurie called me “Dit-Dit� when I was a little cub, and together with my faithful guardian, Koya, I would follow her everywhere through the bush, with my baby hairs sticking out all over my back!

Genes make all living things different from one another. Human genes make humans all different sizes, shapes, and colors. Because cheetah genes are so similar to one another, we sometimes

grow “abnormally� (which means not normal) and have problems like crowded teeth and crooked tails. Our teeth help us eat properly and our tails steer our bodies when we are running.

This is one of our geneticists in the CCF genetics lab where Dr. Laurie and her Namibian students study my species. Geneticists are scientists who study genes and heredity in living things.

When I was 13 months old I had to go to the dentist.

Yes, the same dentist you go to! Sometimes cheetahs’ teeth are weak or grow in the wrong place or direction.

My back teeth were too tall and they were wearing away the roof of my mouth.

Dr. Laurie took me to Windhoek, the capital city of Namibia, to get my teeth fixed. It was a very strange place, but Dr. Laurie stayed with me and made me feel safe. I was very glad to get back home to play with Koya and have familiar smells around me.

Some of Dr. Laurie’s research was on “playtrees.” Farmers named them playtrees because they would see cheetahs and cubs climb and play on the trees. Being up high helps us get a good view of the area to find our prey and also leave our scent (smell) to tell other cheetahs we were here! I visited the playtrees with Dr. Laurie and I have climbed many of them. The first time I went up a tree here at CCF I stood on the branches of the tree and looked all around from a height I had never been before. It felt great!

But I couldn’t get down.

Dr. Laurie came to the rescue by climbing up a ladder to get me down.

The next day I was determined to do it myself.

When I started climbing down the tree, I got about half way down and then jumped to the ground.

“Doof!” I landed a little harder than I expected, but at least I did it! The more I practiced, the better I became. Soon I was a tree-climbing expert!

When I was young and visiting the playtrees with Dr. Laurie it made me nervous because I could smell that big male cheetahs had recently been in the area. The messages the big males left as a scent said, “This is my area! Get lost or I will beat you up.� It was very scary for a cub like me. When I became a big male, I would leave my own scent at the playtrees as a message for the other big males in the area.

My friends here at CCF do a lot of research about cheetahs and the cheetah’s ecosystem in Namibia. They talk and work with all sorts of people, especially farmers. CCF provides Anatolian shepherd and Kangal dogs, like my dog sister, Koya, to farmers to protect their goats and sheep.

The farmers in Namibia have the biggest say in the cheetah’s survival.

Some farmers take care of their land and look at the whole conservation picture. Other farmers only think of numbers and how big of a herd of livestock they can get and then they put too many animals on their land.

Some farmers also worry that cheetahs will eat their livestock and game, so they want to shoot us. But let me tell you, cheetahs would rather eat game because it tastes so much better! Farmers can learn how to protect their livestock from predators (animals that eat other animals to survive) and keep the ecosystem balanced, like the cheetah, so they don’t have to shoot us anymore. Lots of farmers are learning about this.

Namibia is very dry and its land is easily hurt by humans, so we all must look after it properly.

I am lucky I don’t have to worry about farmers shooting me. We can live longer and are protected in zoos and sanctuaries like CCF, but we do belong out in the wild and not as pets. However, cheetahs like me, an orphan ambassador, play an important part in keeping the wild cheetahs alive. We help teach people about our species.

It is difficult, though, because cheetahs living in zoos don’t have very many babies, and without training from our natural mothers, we orphans can’t hunt well enough to feed ourselves and survive in the wild.

Even though we cannot live in the wild, we hope that by being ambassadors for all the wild cheetahs, our species will survive. Now that YOU know more about us, please help us keep on living free and in the wild forever.

Dedication Chewbaaka (1995 – 2011) Chewbaaka will always be alive at CCF and continue to walk with us in our quest to save the cheetah. He left a legacy and will live on in our hearts. In Africa the concept of the “living dead” is well-known.

A great person, a chief, or a beloved stays alive as long as there is one person on earth who still remembers them.

Chewbaaka is now amongst those who will never be forgotten; he will be alive in the memories of so many.

And CCF’s mission goes on for peaceful co-existence between man and animal.

Photo by Suzi Eszterhas

Mar Photo by Laurie

ker

CCF ’s Ambassador, Chewbaaka

Photo by Laurie Marker

Photo courtesy

of CCF

Those who met Chewbaaka will never forget him. Chewbaaka became a living symbol of CCF’s vision of a world where humans and cheetahs could thrive together, in the wild, not as tame pets. However, orphaned cheetahs like Chewbaaka or those that will never be able to live in the wild are usually raised as educational ambassadors so that people everywhere can learn what this amazing species looks like and how it walks, purrs, chirps, and runs.

Chewbaaka at 6 weeks old

Chewbaaka and Koya, best friends forever

CHEWBAAKA Dr. Laurie Marker, is the Founder and Executive Director of the Cheetah Conservation Fund (www.cheetah.org) and has been studying cheetahs since 1974. She was one of the scientists that collaborated on the landmark discovery of the cheetah’s reduced genetic diversity and began her research on cheetahs in Africa in 1977. After setting up the Cheetah Conservation Fund in 1990, she moved to Namibia in 1991 to develop an international center for cheetah research and education. In 2000 she was honored as one of TIME magazine’s “Heroes for the Planet” and has received many other prestigious awards including the 2010 Tyler Prize for the Environment and the 2013 ICCF Good Stewardship Award by the International Conservation Caucus Foundation (ICCF) in Washington, DC. In 2015 she accepted the Edward O. Wilson Biodiversity Technology Pioneer Award, the Eleanor Roosevelt Medal Award, and the Ulysses S. Seal Award for Innovation in Conservation from the Conservation Breeding Specialist Group (CBSG). By intimately living with and studying cheetahs for nearly 40 years, Laurie’s perspective adds a matchless depth of understanding of cheetahs. She holds a Doctorate of Philosophy from University of Oxford in the United Kingdom.

Jessie Jordan, illustrator, has been fascinated by zoology and art her entire life. She combines these passions as a zoological illustrator, and focuses on and working with wildlife conservation organizations. Jessie loves all animals, and uses creativity to express what she learns about them and the world they live in.

Join us in saving the wild cheetah – go to www.cheetah.org

A significant portion of the proceeds go directly to the Cheetah Conservation Fund. $18.95