Ashia: Conservation with a touch of class

You only need to take a look at a cheetah to understand that it is the most endangered of Africa’s big cats. There’s something vulnerable and tragic about their faces – the haunted expression accentuated by black tear tracks running down their cheeks – that hint at a potentially bleak future. The threat to the cheetah, Acinonyx jubatus, is far from imaginary, the species is listed as vulnerable by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), with fewer than 7 000 animals remaining in the wild.

Habitat loss, conflict with humans and increasing pressure from the illegal pet trade means they inhabit one-tenth of their historic range. That’s just part of the problem. Small populations and wide dispersal means inbreeding is inevitable and the gene pool within a meta-population gets shallower with every litter born. One result of this is a spike in mortality rates among cubs and sub-adults.

The small agricultural town of Paarl in the Western Cape would seem an unlikely spot to establish a programme that has the conservation world agog. Nonetheless, it is on a 10-hectare section of a working farm that the Ashia not-for-profit breeding, wilding and release initiative for captive-born cheetah was launched by a retired German couple, Stephan Jllinberger and Chantal Rischard, in September 2018.

Ashia accommodation. Picture: Jim Freeman

A limited number of people – 20 a day – are allowed to visit Ashia (www.ashia.co.za) and in what must be one of the best tourism secrets of the Boland, there are four beautifully appointed self-catering guest suites overlooking the verdant property. Rischard stresses that Ashia is a serious conservation project and not a petting zoo in disguise. Physical contact between staff and animals is kept to a minimum, even when animals are deemed too old or medically unsuitable for release.

Cheetah are not by nature aggressive towards people and visitors to the facility are allowed to get close to some animals – not those earmarked for release – but touching is forbidden. Every animal at Ashia was born in captivity. The latest arrivals, 30-month-old hand-reared siblings Saba and Nairo, were flown in from England a week ago. The plan is to eventually release them into the Mount Camdeboo private game reserve in the Great Karoo. Because they have been around humans their entire lives and are usually disorientated after the long trip, Rischard says it would be cruel to immediately deny the new arrivals all physical interaction with their keepers.

“The animals we receive have generally already bonded with people. Decreasing their habituation by reducing physical contact is one of the most important steps in the wilding process.”

She acknowledges that for those animals that cannot be released, Ashia (the name is a Middle Eastern word that translates to “life and hope”) is a sanctuary where they can end their lives in comfort and with expert veterinary care. There are three categories of animal in the sanctuary: those that were in breeding programmes but are too old to have cubs; those with medical problems that preclude release and a very small number that generate absolutely no interest in members of the opposite sex.

The enclosures are large and by cheetah standards, luxurious. Each pen contains at least one multi-level den (the bottom level is enclosed and there is under-floor heating for inclement weather).

Ashia cheetah enclosures. Picture: Jim Freeman

“My husband and I had been coming to South Africa from Germany since the 1990s. We retired at the end of 2014 and were on the plane from Frankfurt the next day to live here permanently. We were initially looking for an existing conservation project just to finance but ended up buying this place and starting Ashia.”

They bought the farm at the end of 2016 and immediately began building a small in situ house for themselves, volunteer and staff quarters, offices, a shop, guest suites and animal enclosures. Construction was completed in 18 months.

“In the wild,” says the former advertising executive, “Some 90% of cheetah cubs die within the first three months. Around 50% fall victim to lions, hyenas, jackals or birds of prey while another 40% suffer from a lack of genetic diversity. In human care, the mortality rate is much lower and more than 70% of cubs reach adulthood.”

Rischard emphasises that the Ashia programme is a scientifically painstaking one and enjoys support from the Endangered Wildlife Trust. One of the first steps of the animals’ long journey to release is weaning them off whatever diet they’ve become accustomed to and onto foods they will encounter in the veld.

“Providing fresh venison for more than a dozen animals several times a week is hugely expensive,” she admits, “but it’s critical to the whole process.”

There are several stages in the programme; finding suitable animals, acquiring them (whether through donation or purchase), assessment and physical preparation, relocation to a pre-release facility and gradual reintroduction to the wild – which, in itself, entails a number of phases. Animals scheduled for release (the most recent were a Bloemfontein-born brother and sister called Josh and Jade) have regular “free” exercise sessions in a large enclosed field (about two hectares) to improve their fitness and stimulate natural hunting impulses.

Josh and Jade. Picture: Jim Freeman

It was long before dawn on a Saturday morning three months ago that Josh and Jade were loaded into large crates and hoisted onto the beds of a pair of bakkies for a 1 100km trek to Kuzuko, a private reserve with a five-star lodge* in the greater Addo area of the Eastern Cape. Ashia staffers Kate Lindop and Kirsty Midlane confessed to shedding a few tears as the spotted siblings took their first steps in the Karoo, the harsh bushveld with its squat thornbushes a far cry from the lush fields of Paarl.

Kuzuko (www.kuzuko.com) reserve manager Gerhard de Lange said cheetah were hugely popular with visitors, primarily for their grace and beauty but also because of their endangered status. He added that nine animals born and raised in captivity had been successfully wilded on the 15 000ha reserve. Four Ashia imports have moved from Kuzuko to their final destinations on reserves in the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal. Another, two-year-old Khai, is in the process of bonding with an older male in an area of Kuzuko where he will encounter other predators for the first time.

“Two females from Ashia have given birth in our breeding sections and their cubs are earmarked for release on other reserves by end of this year.”

There was zero mortality among the cubs, De Lange added. All relocated animals spend at least a couple of weeks in a large pre-release boma to acclimatise and acquire more natural feeding habits.

“I give them a couple of days to recover from the journey and get properly hungry before I dump a whole carcass in the boma. In no time at all, they’re ripping it apart as if that’s all they’ve ever known,” De Lange said.

There is then a “soft” release into a larger section of the park that is stocked with prey animals but devoid of other, potentially life-threatening, predators.

“The last two young females we released,” he laughs, “were killing machines. They brought down a pair of blesbuck on just the third afternoon out of the boma, which shows they’re well on the way to being self-sustaining in the wild. These are things critics of the programme said could never be done by captive-born animals.”

Cheetah kill. Picture: Jim Freeman

Each step of the release process entails monitoring by reserve personnel (including the use of location collars) but with rapidly diminishing physical interaction. Reeling the species back from the brink of extinction is deeply rewarding but a slow process, says De Lange.

“Reserves in southern Africa are crying out for healthy, selfsustaining and genetically diverse cheetah. Current demand is 77 cheetah for 25 parks in South Africa. If I could get my hands on them today, they’d be gone tomorrow.”

*Kuzuko Lodge is a member of the Legacy Hotels group

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