SIFAKA BLOG

During the second day of our Etosha National Park visit, I told my friends that I really wanted to see a hyena. I had never seen one before, and I think they are a very beautiful and very misunderstood African predator. The chances that we would see a hyena were very small, especially because hyenas are nocturnal, meaning they are awake at night and sleep during the day. But when we drove up to a waterhole that morning, there were two spotted hyenas (Crocuta crocuta) enjoying the cool morning air! One of the hyenas was even taking a bath in the waterhole!

One of the hyenas walked off into the bush, but the other hyena seemed to be having a very nice time in the water. We were able to watch the hyena for a pretty long while before it got up out of the water and went to join its friend.

Hyenas may have a bad reputation, but they play a very important role in the African savannah ecosystem. Hyenas are known to both hunt and scavenge for their food. To be a scavenger means that they will eat something that has already died. It may sound rather gross to you and me, but it is a good way for hyenas to get a meal and help clean up the savannah. In this way, hyenas are kind of like garbage disposals!

We recently took a fun trip as part of one of CCF’s international training courses. We put on these training courses in order to teach people from around the world how to help conserve the cheetah and its ecosystem. There is much to learn during these courses (they’re a lot like going to school for an entire month!), and so we take some time off to let our course participants view wildlife in Etosha National Park.

Are you ready to win some more Sifaka Cash?!

We had so much fun with the Arctic Internet Scavenger Hunt we've decided to do another Internet Scavenger Hunt, this time it's about cheetahs and you only have to find the answers to FIVE questions.

The rules are the same as last time--send your answers to EVERY question in one email to win@sifakaproductions.com. Please don't try to post answers to the comments section here, because they won't get published. The first 10 people to send me the correct answers will win 1500 in Sifaka Cash.

Most of all, HAVE FUN!!

Are you ready? Here are the questions (remember, send answers to win@sifakaproductions.com):

1. What is the average lifespan of a cheetah?
2. How fast can a cheetah run?
3. When cheetahs have cubs, how many do they usually have at one time (in one litter)?
4. About how many million years ago did cheetahs evolve?
5. What do cheetahs eat?

That's it! This contest ends when I have 10 emails from all of you with all the correct answers (please only one entry per email address) or by March 29, 2010.

I would like to thank all Sifaka members for helping us with another huge success!
Recently, CCF picked up three cheetahs that were causing problems on a livestock farm nearby. It turned out to be an older female with two cubs that were each about one year old and nearly full-grown. The cubs were in very good health, but their mother had a broken toe and a broken canine tooth. This would have made it very difficult for her to hunt wildlife on her own out in the wild. Visiting veterinarian, Dr. Minty Soni, was assisted by a team of CCF staff to operate on her broken toe. They then took her to the dentist to fix her broken tooth. Can you imagine a cheetah going to the dentist?!


Once she was in very good health again, CCF took the mother cheetah and her cubs to some open land to be released. Once we opened the box they were in, all three ran out of the box and off into the tall grass. It was a very amazing experience to help these three cheetahs have a second chance. We couldn’t have done it without the great support of Sifaka Members like you!

When Cheri and I got home the other day, there was a small bat sitting in our room. It seemed to be rather exhausted, as if it had used all of his energy trying to find a way to get outside. In fact, when we went to pick the little bat up, it didn’t even try to fly away. We put the little bat in a dark box for a few minutes to hopefully help it calm down, and then we took it outside and let it go. We’re not sure what kind of bat it was, but it was a very beautiful little animal!

Polly, Tony, Mischief, and Phil the cheetahs recently received a visit from the real Polly and Tony (the people!). It was quite fun to watch Tony cheetah playing with Tony human, and to teach the real Polly and Tony how to tell all four of the cubs apart. When you know the cats, it is very easy to tell them apart, but when you are just meeting them, it can be very difficult to know who is who!

This morning all four cubs were chasing round and round their dirt mound, and then they all climbed on top and sat for some time looking out across the distance. They were looking very cute!

Did you know that we have black rhinos here at the Cheetah Conservation Fund? The black rhinoceros (Diceros bicornis), also called “hook-lipped” rhinoceros, is an extremely endangered animal. To help the government of Namibia with the conservation of the black rhinoceros, CCF has set up a reserve for a few of these animals.

Although our reserve is home to six black rhinos, there is a young female that keeps escaping! A little while ago, the Namibian government sent their best veterinarians here to catch our escaped rhino. They found her, caught her, and then they returned her to the reserve. She didn’t stay there very long though, because only a few days later she had escaped again!

We think that this young female has set up what is called a “home range” just outside of our reserve. A home range is where an animal spends its time, or the area that an individual animal chooses to live. You can understand home ranges by thinking about the places you often go. Your home range would not include the place that you once visited for holiday, but the common places that you visit like your home, your school, maybe the store, or even your best-friend’s house. For now we are just tracking the young female rhinoceros to make sure that she is staying in the same area. Maybe she just thought that the grass was greener on the other side – the other side of our reserve’s fence that is!

Hey Sifaka World! I want to share a funny story about a very friendly mouse that we named Jeremiah. I think he wanted to say hello to you and thank you for caring about animals.

Here is how we met Jeremiah.

Hello Sifaka World,

As many of you may know, CCF has had the recent addition of four orphaned cheetahs: Polly, Tony, Mischief, and Phil. Thanks to Sifaka Members just like you, these cubs were able to be rescued and are growing up to be some very amazing cheetahs!

Right now, these four youngsters are getting very big, and are keeping us very busy! To keep up with how large they’re growing, we have just made their yard a lot bigger. It has been very interesting to spy on these cubs as they explore all the new parts of their world. We recently put a big dead tree in their yard, and they enjoy climbing all over it. Trees like this one are very important to cheetahs. In the wild, cheetahs would use this kind of tree to “talk” to other cheetahs by leaving behind their individual scents and smells. The four cubs are particularly fond of a big mound in the center of their new yard, as it allows them to watch things going on all around them. They also like a shady patch of grass in one corner, and they often sleep the heat of the day away by all pilling on top of each other in one big pile.

It is always funny to watch these four cubs, as they all have such different personalities.

Tony

Hey Sifaka World, I want to share this amazing story with you about how your Sifaka World memberships saved real animals. Here is what happened.

A farmer called us. He said a female cheetah got caught in his farm fence. The farmer tried to save her but sadly, she died. One of the farmer's assistants saw cheetah cubs run away into the tall grass, and so we knew that there were orphaned cheetah cubs. The good news is that we went to the farm and saved all four of the cubs! Three of the cubs are boys and one is a girl. We named them Mischief, Tony, Phil, and Polly.

The cubs were scared because they had never been around people, and so they hissed and spit and snarled at us. Their fur was covered with little spiky thistles, called burrs. Poor little things! One of the cubs needed stitches, but other than that they were in good health.

The cubs were about three months old. They were a little bigger than a house cat. They each weighed about 11 pounds. We gave each cub what is called a transponder microchip so that we can tell them apart.

We have a great team of people here in Africa who know how to rescue cheetahs and make sure they stay healthy. Don't forget that if you have a Sifaka World membership you are helping to save REAL cheetahs!