New collar for Mountain Zebra National Park cheetah

Cheetah conservation in the Mountain Zebra National Park (MZNP) outside Cradock in the Eastern Cape got a welcome boost, with the donation of a cheetah collar that was fitted to one of the park’s resident female felines.

Her previous collar was almost at the end of its lifespan.

“MZNP, the only national park that tracks cheetahs, is home to eight cats, of which four are collared. Activity guides seek out these cheetahs using a very high-frequency telemetry device,” says JP Louw, South African National Parks (SANParks) head of communications.

“If guests are lucky, they could get within 40m of one or more cheetahs in their natural habitat,” he adds.

The collars also enable park management to gather ecological data for research purposes, which helps to manage the species.

Reintroducing cheetahs to the Karoo

MZNP first reintroduced cheetah in 2007, with two females from the nearby Samara Karoo Reserve. They had been absent from the plains of the Karoo for 130 years. Two males were introduced not long after, to form a breeding population.

“It is SANParks’ policy to reintroduce wildlife species which would have occurred in an area before hunting or habitat loss forced them to local extinction in earlier centuries.

“With growing cheetah populations in confined fenced reserves across South Africa, it was decided that a human-mediated metapopulation approach was required to help maintain the genetic and demographic integrity of these isolated populations and ensure their longevity and conservation value,” says Louw.

In 2011, the Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT) developed the Cheetah Metapopulation Project, now known as the Cheetah Range Expansion Project, to do just this.

MZNP has been an important part of this project since its inception.

“After reintroduction, the cheetah population in the park quickly boomed, as a result of the lack of competing predators (lions were only introduced in 2013). As such, there was a great need to prevent inbreeding in the population. In 2010 and 2011, 13 cheetahs that were born in the park were relocated to other reserves,” says Louw.

The latest fitted collar was donated by avid and regular visitors to the park, Anthony and Martine Armstrong and their family, from the Western Cape. This intervention is expected to further support the successful roll-out of a cheetah population management solution implemented at MZNP.

Cheetah conservation

MZNP is an important contributor to Southern Africa’s cheetah conservation efforts.

“Overall, it has contributed 35 cheetahs to the greater cheetah metapopulation, including two important range expansion projects within Southern Africa – with cheetahs going as far as Malawi and Zambia.

“All cheetahs that are removed from and brought into MZNP are done so strategically, with consultation amongst the EWT, park management and SANParks’ ecologists.

“This ensures that genetic and demographic integrity of the respective populations is maintained, thus ensuring the conservation value of the population,” says Louw.