yego.me
💡 Stop wasting time. Read Youtube instead of watch. Download Chrome Extension

The Race to Save Big Cats | National Geographic


2m read
·Nov 10, 2024

Cheetah are in a race for survival. There are maybe just 7,000 adult cheetah left in the wild. I've covered the illegal trafficking networks draining the Horn of Africa of their cheetah. They also face massive habitat loss and retaliatory killings by herders when cats prey on their livestock. I want to find out what's being done to try and rescue cheetah from the brink.

How do captive breeding programs like this help to grow wild populations of cheetah? It essentially boils down to genetics. There is a lack of diversity in the current wild populations that we have, and we need to put healthy genetics back into it. Part of the phased 're-wilding' is that we're starting to disassociate normal captive settings around them.

When I open up that crate and a cat gets released into a reserve, it gives me goosebumps every single time. One of our initial cats that we re-wilded, her name was Khatu. She's one of our success stories, and she's currently on her third litter already in the wild. I think she's around, but I will use my telemetry to track her.

Yeah. So you have a collar on her?

She has a collar, yes. She's here, with a kill.

Oh wow I see her! So the cubs they run away. It's really rare for the cheetah to get six cubs, but this one, she does this for the second time now. Cheetah like Khatu and her cubs could be the key to ensuring that the fastest land animal on earth isn't consigned to history. But it must happen alongside efforts to stop trafficking, habitat loss, and poaching.

Around the world, big cats like lions and tigers continue to be traded and kept captive in inhumane conditions, but they can be rescued and moved to properly managed wildlife sanctuaries. That can mean a journey of thousands of miles.

I've just been a great animal lover my whole life. When you're talking about Eastern Europe, there are no facilities, there are no sanctuaries there for big cats. So we've got to bring them out. I met someone, and I moved over to Ukraine to be with them. And that is when I got involved in the rescue and relocation of abused wildlife.

We knew we needed to get these cats out. I got on the phone, and I called DHL, and within days they had made a decision that they could do this. So in total, the cats spent 87 hours in those travel crates. The one cat Khaya, she's been locked in a garage size for three years. Concrete and steel. She's never been anywhere else.

And to open that door, she doesn't know that she can step across that threshold. You'll be surprised how quickly they adapt and they'll just be taken care of and loved in the way that we can love them, and let them just be lions.

More Articles

View All
How does voter turnout in midterms compare to presidential elections? | Khan Academy
How does voter turnout in midterms compare to presidential elections? Traditionally, midterm elections have been years in which the voter turnout is much lower than a presidential election. Particularly in recent history, the American political scene has …
These are the questions you should be asking at a late-stage startup.
When a company goes public or when a company is acquired for a lot of money, the market is looking at how much revenue that company is making and is that revenue growing. I would say that, you know, for example, if I’m at a company right now that’s making…
How Understanding the Typical Life Arc can Give you Perspective
Most people’s lives are, there’s a life arc, and most people’s lives transpire in like ways that you could see over and over again. You know, so I break it down. It seems to me like there are three big phases in life. The first phase is you’re dependent …
We Tracked Every Visitor to Epstein Island | WIRED
Even in death, the secrets of Jeffrey Epstein remain tightly guarded. But earlier this year, I spearheaded a Wired investigation that uncovered the data of almost 200 mobile phones belonging to visitors to his infamous pedophile island. The data was so pr…
Probability with combinations example: choosing groups | Probability & combinatorics
We’re told that Kyra works on a team of 13 total people. Her manager is randomly selecting three members from her team to represent the company at a conference. What is the probability that Kyra is chosen for the conference? Pause this video and see if yo…
Should You Follow Your Passion? – Dalton Caldwell and Michael Seibel
Guess what gives you passion? You want to hear the secret? Guess what keeps you attached to an idea? That damn thing — working, success, users, revenue numbers — that makes a lot of these folks that have no particular ideas suddenly care a lot more when t…