Joyful Update!

In Kenya in 2019 I had the opportunity to spend time with a cheetah and her four young cubs over a period of a few days.

It was a privilege to get to know them a little and watch them interact with one another…just a beautiful family!

It’s a memory that I’ll hold in my heart forever. And now…I’ve just learned something super exciting about them! Someone approached me on Instagram and asked me to share my photos of big cats from the Maasai Mara ecosystem in a Facebook group where some very dedicated people are identifying them and keeping track of them. I did, and I’ve been delighted to learn more about the big cats I’d captured. (Soon I’ll introduce to you to a stunning leopard who I know now is named Kini.)

I was scared to post these babies, though.

It’s so very dangerous to be a baby of any species, and the mortality rate for cheetah cubs during their first year is 70%. 70%!!! I posted with a heavy heart hoping that at least one or maybe even two had survived to adulthood, but knowing that it wasn’t terribly unlikely that none of them had grown up at all.

Well, now I know that the cheetah mom’s name is Nebahati…

…and she deserves a mom-of-the-year award because she successfully raised ALL FOUR of those beautiful babies to adulthood!! I cannot tell you how overjoyed I was to hear that. It made my day. My week, even. ALL FOUR babies all grown up and doing well!!

Baby cheetahs stay with their moms for about 18 months, and mom is usually pregnant again at the time that they disperse. It sounds like that’s exactly what happened here. The 2019 babies are off making lives of their own, and Nebahati is now working hard to raise two new babies.

It’s unlikely that I’ll make it back to Kenya before her most recent litter disperses, but it makes me awfully happy to think about them doing well over there.