Africat at Okonjima
Okonjima Lodge is the home of Africat, a research foundation.
It cares for
leopards,
cheetah
and
lions.
While I was at Okonjima, I also learned the
differences between leopard and cheetah.
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Leopards
Okonjima is a guest farm that takes care of cats:
leopard, cheetah, lions, caracal (lynx).
Late each afternoon, guests are taken to a hide
from where they can see leopard. Meat is set out
for them. The setting is perfect. The western
sun lights up the rock face making for
good photographic opportunity.
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Okonjima rescues cats when farmers cannot cope with
stock losses, when guest farms get tired of looking
after cats, or when mothers get injured and cubs are unable
to cope alone.
Those cats that are able to live on their own are
given any necessary medical care and released into
the wild in appropriate surroundings.
Cats who are habituated to humans, or cubs who had
no mother to teach them how to hunt are retained
at Okonjima where they live as stars.
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Cheetah
There are maybe 10,000 cheetah left in the world.
More than a quarter of those are in Namibia.
But cheetah take young calves, so they are at risk
from Namibian cattle farmers
for whom cheetah are a significant pest.
In 1993, Lise Hanssen founded the Africat foundation,
housed at Okonjima. Africat
works with farmers to develop ways to
prevent stock losses without
having to cull cheetah and other cats.
Africat rescues and rehabilitates cheetah, leopard,
lion and caracals (lynx). The visitor gets to see
some of all these animals.
This cheetah lost its mother in a car accident.
He is too much habituated to humans to be able to live
and hunt successfully in the wild. So he is kept at
Okonjima along with two siblings and another brother-and-sister
pair, and fed twice daily.
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This is Deke, a cheetah born at Africat in
1994. He lost part of his right ear to a haemotoma
when he was four months old.
In addition, he was wearing a bandage on one foot
after a cut got infected.
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Grant talks to visitors while the cheetah
eyes off the remaining titbits in the bowl.
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Here, the cheetah is on the hood of the jeep, and Grant
has a large basin of titbits of meat.
These cheetah are fed fresh meat twice daily.
Africat brings up cheetah kittens
on meat and, of all things,
Iams cat food!
Iams has sponsored Africat by providing food and
raising funds.
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What's the difference between a leopard and a cheetah?
In the photos below, you can see several of the differences
between leopard and cheetah.
Leopard at Okonjima
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Cheetah at Okonjima
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- Leopards have rosette-shaped spots. Cheetah have solid round, or oval, spots.
- Leopards have no "tear" line. Cheetah have a black
"tear" line running from the inside of the eye to
the mouth.
- Leopard are bulkier and stronger. Cheetah are lighter, but taller, than leopard.
- Leopard have a familiar "cat" shape. Cheetah are lankier than the "cat" shape.
- Leopard hunt at night. Cheetah hunt during the day.
- Leopard like to drag prey up trees. Cheetah prefer grassy plains.
- Leopard rely on stealth. Cheetah rely on speed (up to 115km/hr) over short distances.
They are the world's fastest animal.
- Leopard have strong teeth and jaws and can crunch through thick bones.
Cheetah have smaller teeth and jaws, leaving a larger
nasal cavity for rapid breathing. They cannot crunch large bones.
- Leopard walk using their legs diagonally (left front, back right etc).
Cheetah pace: they walk moving two left legs, then two right legs.
(I became fascinated identifying which animals walk in which way and
at Etosha National Park I observed that giraffe and gemsbok pace, too.)
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Lions
Each morning, at dawn, guests at Okonjima meet up
at the Lion Lapa to see Okonjima's lions. The Lion Lapa
is a kind of viewing platform, about 2m high,
combined with a buffet of a light breakfast.
There is a fine view of the lions as they
habitually arrive each morning to talk to their
handlers, members of the Hanssen family.
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One of the silliest things I've ever done was drop
the lens hood of my new Sigma 500mm lens over the
edge of the viewing platform, and on to the
top of this lion! He sniffed it then
played around with it in the dust. He seemed gentle
and curious, and pawed it just as a kitten
would play with a ball of wool. But his paws
were bigger than my hands. He eventually
tired of his new toy and wandered away.
The lions' handler retrieved the lens hood for me.
I was embarrassed, but the lens hood was only dusty
and very lightly scratched.
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From a month's holiday, this is probably the best photograph.
Apparently the Kodak shop thought so too. They
borrowed the negatives to make up a set of
enlargements to display on the board in their shop!
And to give a plug to the people who developed
and printed all my photos, and scanned them onto
CDs, I recommend Eye2Eye Photographics of Australia
on Collins in Melbourne.
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