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Why Would We Name A Female Cheetah? – Londolozi Blog

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Over the past few weeks, there have been regular sightings of a mother cheetah and her cubs throughout the southwestern parts of the reserve. Historically, cheetahs have been scarce across the Sabi Sand Nature Reserve due to the high density of lions and leopards. This has therefore been an incredibly special time for the Londolozi Ranger and Tracker team and being able to share this with their guests.

Cheetahs can cover vast distances and are normally few and far between, being seen only occasionally. This makes record-keeping like we do with the lions and leopards, a difficult task. The more regularly we see a particular individual, the more we can contextualize what we observe and thus the more accurate our findings are. It is for this reason that in the past, we have not ascribed names to individual animals like cheetahs.

However, this female cheetah has been occupying the southern and western parts of the Sabi Sand Nature Reserve for the past few years and has started to become a permanent feature between us and our western neighbours. Below are two photos that I took almost two years ago of her and a male cub from her last litter that she raised to independence.

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So for us to be able to refer to this specific female cheetah going forward the decision was made by Panthera in conjunction with the reserves that see this female and her cubs to give her a unique name. She will now officially be referred to as the Makatini Female Cheetah. “Makatini” is a Swahili word meaning “grounded and sociable”.

NT Cheetah and cubs

With the Makatini Female now having cubs, sightings of them together have provided us all with many valuable insights into the life of a cheetah on a very intimate level. This has been a huge highlight of my career as a Londolozi Ranger.

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She was originally seen with four cubs but is now down to three. One is a female and two are males. The cubs have reached the age now, at roughly just over five and a half months, where they can escape most danger if it is detected early enough. They are still nowhere near as fast as their mother, but they can flee and scatter very quickly if they need to.

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Both the Makatini Female and her cubs seem to be doing incredibly well thus far. It is almost unheard of for a mother cheetah to have raised an entire litter to independence, but I really do hope that the remaining three cubs all make it to adulthood.

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Male cheetahs are very much like male lions in the sense that they form coalitions, which I’m hoping will be the case for the two male cubs down the line.

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Over the coming months, we will definitely be putting out more updates on the Makatini Female and her cubs, and we are incredibly excited to follow their journey going forward. We can only hope that all goes well for them and they continue to thrive.

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Matt Rochford

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