By Maxime Lapidaire

For several months ACK has been trying to catch a cheetah outside of the Samburu National Reserve to put on a radio collar. Unfortunately we haven’t been able to catch a cheetah yet. The cheetahs outside of the reserve are more shy than the animals inside the reserve. It is important to collect data from these cheetahs because these are the animals who come in conflict with human in the area.

The trap that we use is a metal cage with, when set, two open doors and a plate on the floor. When an animal steps on this plate the doors will fall down. To make it more attractive for a cheetah to walk into the trap, another cage is set next to the trap. In this cage is a goat. The goat cage is surrounded by thorn bush so it makes it harder for the cheetah to see what is in it. This way it gets stimulated to walk up closer to it.

Although we haven’t been able to catch a cheetah in this area yet, we have had several animals in our trap already. So far we have had several hyenas and a jackal in the trap. These animals have been released right after they were found in the trap.