A WOMAN’S WAR TO SAVE THE CHEETAHS
BY PROFESSOR JEFFREY FADIMAN
“Lente?” Her mother’s voice was soft. “Wake up! Would you like to be a mama. . .to a cheetah baby?”
Lente Schuermann, South Africa born, was five years old. She sat up and blinked at the tiny gray ball of fur, nestled in her mother’s hands. “I didn’t even know what it was,” she later told me. However, when it yawned and stretched and snuggled into her own cupped hands, Lente fell in love.
Sebeka, the cheetah was probably one week old. Her mother had been shot for attacking a sheep, and the cub survived. She showed no fear in Lente’s hands, but squirmed sleepily into a relationship that would last 21 years. The tiny cheetah had found a new mama, and Lente had found a lifelong career—as a mama to cheetahs.
The word “Sebeka” has no special meaning. It was just a sound that a little girl gave her new, gray, fur ball. Over time, it grew beautiful, slender, intelligent and, frankly, kittenish. It followed Lente around the house, climbed the furniture and wore a leash for back yard walks. It never grew wild. Lente’s problem was Sebeka’s sharp, rough tongue. It licked her legs, arms, neck, nose; whatever Sebeka could reach, and the licks hurt! Yet, Lente’s dearest memories are sitting on the floor, then feeling little cheetah feet stalk onto her lap, and a tiny tongue lick every inch of her cheeks.
Sebeka lived 21 years. Lente grew up to marry Johann Roode. They bought land to raise short horned cattle. Sadly, short-horned cattle cannot defend themselves against predators, which were far more common than they are today. Lion, leopard and cheetah took livestock almost daily, and ranchers shot them on sight. Johann defended the herd with his rifle, but on losing the 60th cow he gave up. The herd was sold, and the land became a “wild game farm,” evolving over decades into today’s Wilderness Conservation Reserve.
RAISING ORPHANED CHEETAHS
Sebeka aged and finally died. Lente’s thoughts turned to buying and even breeding other cheetahs. She turned to former game warden Desmond Varaday to request a breeding pair. “Lente,” he replied, “I have 35 cheetahs, and would like you to buy them all.”
Varaday had reasons. One was that he was older, and health problems made the cheetahs harder to tend. A second was cost. An adult cheetah eats 6.2 pounds of meat per day. Thirty-five cheetahs would thus eat 217 pounds per day or 1519 pounds per week, or 554, 435 pounds per year. That meant huge costs.
Notwithstanding, Lente bought them all, moving them into enclosures on their land. In that era, no one feared poachers, other than village hunters snaring meat. However, cheetahs could die in other ways. Thus, Faraday taught Lente how to breed her new pack, train the cubs to hunt and then release them, newly-grown, into the wild.
MATING, TRAINING, RELEASE
The males were put in groups of six. Each female was placed in her own enclosure. Lente then created ‘lover’s lane’; a narrow corridor running along the enclosures, where males paced up and down past the females. The pacing both brought the females into heat and made them press against the fence. Each could signal her choice of mate by flirting with him; touching noses through the fence and rubbing up against it. The chosen male would do the same. They were then put together and left alone to mate. The male then signaled that mating was complete by standing alone at the fence, until the caretaker released him.
Lente also learned many ways that new-born and just-orphaned cubs could die. One was by drinking too much milk. “Looking back,” Lente told me, “I don’t know how I kept a single cub alive.” Nowadays, whoever feeds a cub does so every three hours, all day, every day. The first step is to weigh each cub, each time. That tells the caretaker just how much milk must be provided, and how many minutes it may drink. If the milk-giver day-dreams while working, the cub will happily drink itself into a stupor, risking illness and death.
As the cubs matured, they needed wilderness skills. Wild cheetahs hunt at dawn and dusk. Lente’s cheetahs now run at dawn and dusk, chasing an electronic lure. They run up and down a large enclosure, with bites of meat as rewards
The next step is to let them learn to hunt. Wild cubs learn from their mothers. Orphan cubs learn from their mistakes. Once, two cubs in training rushed a buffalo, which then charged them both. Thereafter, both avoided buffalo.
Larger cubs are placed in a series of enclosures, each large enough to include small game for them to hunt, yet strong enough to keep large predators out. Each cub has a tracking collar, with an electronic chip. Their meat ration is steadily reduced, to provide the incentive to hunt. They chase, pounce, miss, try again and learn. Eventually they are released into open spaces, again ideally filled with smaller game and hopefully predator-free. At this point, only the tracking collar connects the hunter with his handlers.
When a cheetah reaches sub-adulthood, it is released. A final gate is opened. The youngster walks out, alert for danger. In the wild, few survive. Thus, a young cheetah orphan, unfamiliar with freedom, can be instantly seized by lion, leopard, wild dogs, jackals, hyena, civet, serval, caracal and genet cats, vultures, eagles and crocodiles.
Most new releases first circle their enclosure, perhaps many times. Thereafter, they work outward, exploring every scent, creating a mental library of what they smell. Releases start in dry seasons, since rains eliminate the scents of both potential predators and prey. Then, the tracking collar is removed. Ideally, the cheetah melts into the bush.
Over time, the original 35 cheetahs were joined by other species. If someone calls to say: ”You rescue orphaned cheetahs; could you also take an orphaned leopard?” Lente cannot resist. Over time, every species of wild cat, African wild dogs, Ground Hornbills, baby elephants and most recently, a flow of orphaned rhino have found refuge. What was originally the Hoedspruit Cheetah Project has evolved into the Hoedspruit Endangered Species Centre (HESC).
THE THREE SWORDS OF DAMOCLES
When I was younger, I heard the ancient Greek tale of the sword of Damocles. Damocles lived in the court of Dionysius II, (404 BC), Tyrant of Syracuse. Once too often, Damocles over-flattered the King, claiming that since he alone held power, only he could be happy. The Tyrant responded by commanding Damocles to sit on his throne and be King. Only after he was seated did Damocles glance up—-to see a sharpened sword, handing high above his head, held by a single horse hair. Terrified, Damocles instantly asked Dionysius to let him leave the throne. “Go,” the Tyrant replied. “It is you who are happy, because you go. I must live under the sword until I die.” Since that day, the sword of Damocles has come to symbolize impending doom, from which one can never be free.
CHINESE, VIETNAMESE POACHING SYNDICATES
Lente Roode must live under no fewer than four swords of Damocles. Each has the capacity to destroy what she has built. All will hang over her throughout her life. Three of these swords lie in the hands of criminal poaching syndicates outside Africa. The oldest is based in Southern China, where one single town (Shuidong) is home to an entire network of competing criminal syndicates each of which has poached Africa’s elephants for 20 years.
The Chinese have reached out to urban African crime syndicates, including those in South Africa. These recruit well-known urban gangs previously focused on home break-ins or car theft. The gangs receive training in sub-machine guns, wildlife tracking, bush survival and evading ranger guards. Thereafter, the syndicates provide the recruits with weapons, vehicles and missions.
Vietnamese syndicates seek rhino horn. One village, near Hanoi, trafficked 579 horns in 2017. Competing gangs appeared 20 years ago, when rumors spread among the upper classes that horn cured cancer. The tales then expanded to include cures for 30 ailments, including hangovers. To own a horn became a status symbol: the gift of choice to give to one’s supervisor. When ground to powder and mixed with alcohol, it became both a party drink and hangover cure. In fact, all the claims are nonsense. In life, the clients believe.
Viet syndicates also recruit South African syndicates, who arm and train the actual poachers. Environmental sources say that rhino poachers now fly helicopters over game parks at night, shooting the animals silently, with darts. They land, slice off the horn with chainsaws, then flee, letting the dehorned rhino bleed to death.
They are effective. South Africa now holds 31,000 rhinos. Three are killed each day, with 1004 lost last year. One kg of horn brings $60,000 on the black market. That makes it more valuable than the equivalent weight in gold, diamonds or cocaine. At current rates of extermination, it will take only 11 years to kill them all.
FIGHTING BACK
HESC opposes these intruders with pairs of game guards, backed by attack and tracking dogs. Each night two guards patrol, with a single dog seeking human scent. The dog is on long leash, but may not be released. Poachers may spend several nights in the reserve, looking for tracks, primarily rhino. When they find one, they kill it with one shot to minimize noise, then saw off the horn.
Assume two game guards and one dog confront two poachers. Both sides are armed. However, South African law states that guards may not fire unless fired on. The poachers know this, and may run rather than fight. They separate, since the dog can only follow one.
The guards chase one poacher, extending the leash to maximum length but holding the dog. If it catches a poacher, the dog will bite, hold, and drag him down. If the poacher shoots the dog, the guards may shoot back. Alternatively, if the poacher is too fast, the guards radio local police to block him and make the arrest.
ARAB CUB-POACHER GANGS
South African poachers currently slaughter rhino, elephant and lion, but not yet cheetah. However, a demand for cheetah cubs as pets has recently emerged in United Arab Emirates. This pet trade is currently supplied from Ethiopia/Somalia’s estimated 2500 cheetahs.
Cubs are so valued as pets that entire litters are seized from their mothers when only 4-5 weeks old. Stolen cubs, often tossed in crates, go by boat across the Red Sea to Yemen, a land so wracked by civil war that law no longer exists. They move by truck into the UAE, to be marketed through Instagram and Facebook for up to $10,000 piece. Wildlife investigators have seen cheetahs riding in cars, being walked on leashes and even exercising on family treadmills. Many are fed cat food, which harms their health.
When they grow up, owners often release them into the streets or desert, where they starve and die. Thus, the fatality rate for this particular pet is 100%—usually within two years. As demand expands, Ethiopian and Somali cheetahs will vanish. The syndicates will then turn to the remaining 6200 cheetahs in Southern Africa. Clearly, this sword will hang above HESC for years to come.
WESTERN FUNDING
The forth and sharpest sword is lack of funding. Donors give generously—once—but then disappear. The expenses, however, both recur and expand. Consider one core cost: Lente estimates that it costs $40 (500 Rand) per year to maintain one cheetah for one week, including the cost of the 6.2 pounds of beef it will eat per day. Over one year, that same cheetah will cost $2080.
HESC now has some 100 cheetahs on site. If so, they will cost $208,000 per year, every year. The problem is not that these numbers are large, but that they recur. If tourism suddenly drops (say, due to terrorism), the 100 cheetahs still must be fed, as must the thirteen rhino orphans, leopards, etc. For Lente, the fear of running out of funds is perhaps the sharpest sword of all.
THE THREAT
Much has been written as to how the extermination of cheetah and indeed all of earth’s wildlife will leave us lonely and empty and sad. That may be true, but it lies in the distant future. Meanwhile, we all have an immediate problem. Lente and thousands like her work non-stop to preserve Africa’s wildlife—but other thousands are working non-stop to exterminate it. All Asian and African poaching syndicates share a goal: to make money through the eventual death of every wild animal in Africa.
The syndicates will always generate new clientele. As one animal is exterminated, they will shift to another. After the rhino, elephant, lion, leopard and cheetah are gone, they will create new demand for everything from warthog tusks to antelope tails, simply by advertising them as magical, sexual or status symbols. One by one, ALL of Africa’s animals will be hunted to extinction, simply because they are “African,” and therefore exotic to an Asian or Arab clientele.
Should we not stand up to the exterminators? They are few and armed with guns. We are millions and armed both with funds and a rising realization that these syndicates must be broken if Africa’s wildlife is to survive. That will not happen. Neither the Asian, Arab nor African governments will act. Shouldn’t we—at least enough to help this small, brave, endangered species center protect them?
Lente Roode became the mother to an orphaned cheetah when she was five. In a larger sense, she has become the mother to all the orphaned cheetahs of South Africa, dedicating an entire lifetime to assure that they survive. Doesn’t she deserve a little help?