Four cheetah cubs were born at the Wild Animal Park’s off-exhibit cheetah breeding facility last August, 2005. They were pulled from their mother because she was not showing us strong signs of caring for them. The four cubs were taken to the Harter Veterinary Medical Center for a quick checkup, where we discovered we had four very healthy girls! It is unusual to have all girls. In fact, the cheetahs at the Wild Animal Park have only had all-girl litters on three other occassions.

The cubs were transferred to the San Diego Zoo’s Children’s Zoo nursery where the very talented staff started their round-the-clock care. The cubs thrived there and many meetings were held to decide the best course of care for their future.

In October 2005, the cheetah girls were brought back to where they were born at the Wild Animal Park, an area devoted to the care, breeding, and behavioral research of cheetahs. There are large grassy pens with trees and shade and lots of fun things for cheetah cubs to play with. The decision was made to raise them in such a way that they knew they were cheetahs and did not rely on humans for all their play and interactions. We keepers spent a lot of time with them but started early training to teach them what was acceptable and not with us. For example, they were not allowed to wrestle or play rough with us, but they could wrestle with the plush animals (Etana is pictured above) we gave them or with each other. (Read the blog, Cheetah Cubs Get Toys from Adopt-An-Animal.) The youngsters quickly caught on that we were the source of food and comfort and petting. They had plenty of toys, including balls and stuffed animals, to play with and oh did they play!

Fast forward to August, 2006. We celebrated the cubs’ first birthday. Wow, does time fly! From holding the little pipsqueaks in my hand the day they were born to watching them climb their first trees and weighing in at 70+ pounds (32+ kilograms), it has been a full year! For their birthday, we made them enrichment items of cardboard and sheep’s wool. The keepers had fun creating ” beasts,” from realistic hoofed stock to a bird to a caveman dude. We put the creatures in a separate pen from the cubs and then opened the gate and the cubs, who had been watching us, wasted no time in running over to investigate. Yes, cheetahs can be very shy of new things, but we have introduced them to a wide array of toys and enrichment items over the months. They all approached with a mixture of mostly enthusiasm and a little wariness.

The bravest of the four, Pombe, quickly went to the small ” goat” and was very keen on the wool, something new to her. One by one, they all bit, carried around, and chewed on the ” beasts,” much to our delight. After a while, we gave them their breakfast of carnivore diet as a meat ” cake” shaped in the form of the number one. Not that they cared so much about that, but we humans got a big kick out of it!! A very fun day was had by cubs and keepers alike!

Stay tuned for more information on how the four girls spent their first year and how their personalities have come out!

Kelly Casavant is a keeper at the San Diego Zoo’s center for Conservation and Research for Endangered Species (CRES).

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