Over the last few weeks the black Rhino game reserve have truly changed into a green and lush environment. Thanks to almost 200mm of beautiful rain. Sightings have been plentiful, with frequent Big 5 sightings and our resident female Cheetah, known as “Tale” (which means Royalty in the local Tswana language) on numerous occasions.
Being a first time mother to 4 amazing young cubs around 5 months old. They have been spending more and more time in Black Rhino thanks to lots of thickets close to the mountains. With vast open plains in the center which is excellent hunting grounds for the Worlds fastest mammal.
She’s been seen from the Buffalo thorn lodge waterhole hunting Impalas. She’s very successful in her hunts, due to the lambing season of all the Antelopes. She hides the cubs at the edge of thickets and then makes her way to the open plains, where she can reach her top speed of a 100+Km/h. Moving from mound to mound to get a height advantage, she can scan the terrain to spot unsuspecting prey or to detect other Predators.
With the Pilanesberg National park being part of a network of nature conservation projects, the EWT(Endangered wildlife trust) is one where they interchange genetics of Cheetahs with other reserves throughout Southern Africa to insure no interbreeding occurs and to keep the gene pool pure.
2 male Cheetahs were introduced into the Pilanesberg from the Dinokeng game reserve. They are the 2 fathers of the cubs that we currently have in Pilanesberg. Cheetahs are different to all other cats, even to most mammals, as the females are Solitary or accompanied by their young and the males form Coalitions of usually related males. That being said, it could be the reason why the collective noun for Cheetahs are “A Coalition of Cheetahs”.
We hope that Tale and her 4 youngsters remain on the Black Rhino conservancy for the near future. And continue to give our guests amazing sightings.
