Safari & Company - Safari Adventures Custom Designed

Cheetah interaction in Kafue, Zambia

Cheetah have a limited distribution in Zambia, but the wide open Busanga floodplain mixed with broken miombo woodland on the fringes and healthy populations of species like puku, lechwe, reedbuck and oribi make for an ideal habitat. This of course doesn't guarantee cheetah sightings: it is a species whose wellbeing is to a large degree dependent on the densities of other larger predators such as lion and spotted hyaena. Nonetheless the 2008 season yielded some regular and spectacular cheetah sightings from all of the three camps situated on the Busanga Plains: Shumba, Kapinga and Busanga Bush Camp.

In early October 2008 we were on a game drive down towards the southern end of the Busanga Plains specifically in search of the two well known cheetah brothers that have dominated the area for a couple of years. After much persistence, Idos eventually found them resting beside a small bush. What we did not immediately see was a young female cheetah lying some distance away in the floodplain and we spent some time with the two males before the young female stood up some 200m away. Only then did the males and the female become aware of each other.

The two males immediately began to stalk what they automatically viewed as an intruder. Given her wide open surroundings, the young female had no opportunity for escape and simply stood her ground. The coalition ran in and aggressively attacked her with much snarling, slapping and teeth bearing. At some point in this initial interaction however, they realised that she was a female and the intensity lowered as they backed off slightly: A different stimulus now coming into play, both males then starting sniffing around for olfactory clues as to the female's identity and reproductive status.

She continued to hold her ground hissing and snarling whenever they approached. Nonplussed, the coalition tried at least another five times to approach her and establish contact. Each time she rebuffed them aggressively and after about 20 minutes they began to lose interest and walked away slowly to continue their patrol of the southern end of the Plains. She was obviously not in season (or perhaps even too young) and the males decided their energies were better spent elsewhere. It is likely that this was their first actual encounter with this specific female, even though they might well have been aware of her presence in the Plains from her olfactory messages left in urine and dung. The interaction itself is not atypical of those within a species that does not live socially and which may physically interact only rarely. We felt extremely privileged to have witnessed these events.