by Mary Wykstra

Nataanywe really can move! When we collared her, we believed that she was a cheetah who is not commonly found in the park. She was young and she did not have a spot pattern that we have seen before. We tracked and downloaded her collar after about a week and found that she had pretty much covered the whole of Samburu reserve. The cluster of points seem to be her location after she makes a kill.

We again tracked Nataanywe on Wednesday 23 March, but although we were getting a pretty strong signal, she was in a rocky area where we could not drive. We did not have a ranger with us, so we could not walk in on foot. After a few days in the West Gate conservancy where we worked with the conservancy managers to finalize our plans for cheetah trapping, we returned to the park on Saturday the 26th. This time we picked up our Corporal friend, Ernest Ekeno, and proceeded tracking in the area we last found her signal.

The signal was coming from an area about 1 km from where she had been a few days earlier. The signal would come in loud and then would fade. We were uncertain if she was walking away or laying on the transmitter. After about an hour of working our way towards her… there she sat under a tree. She is looking very nice and healthy.

Attached is the map from the first 6 days, and I will keep posting more maps that show her movements. At this point it does not appear that she moved out of the Reserves, but it has only been a month, so it will be interesting to keep up with her.

Visit our web site – actionforcheetahs.org.

Action for Cheetahs in Kenya needs your help. To make a donation, please visit Project Survival – www.cathaven.com/shop/