NATURE’S CLOSE CALL
Nat Geo Wild’s The Miracle Cheetah tells the story of Sibella, who was nursed back to health after being mauled by a pack of hunting dogs in North West. She was then given a home by the fledgling Samara Game Reserve, outside GraaffReinet in the Eastern Cape. Samara was the passion project of a conservationist family who had a vision of restoring the Karoo, ravaged bare by the overgrazing of cattle and sheep, to how it had been in another age — pristine, teeming with wild creatures.
They bought several adjoining farms, fenced the 28,000ha and slowly nurtured the space into a vast reserve. Game flourished, but cheetah were missing.
Until Sibella. In 2004, she became the first cheetah to roam free on the now lush
MAUREEN GIRDLESTONE plains of the Camdeboo, which rose slowly up into the blue folds of the mountainous Sneeuberg.
Two male cheetah from the same flight were still being held in separate orientation bomas. In cheetah lore, a female needs to be the first to mark her territory. Sensible cats.
We were visiting Samara and were promised that our morning game drive would go in search of the now famous, much loved Sibella. She had been fitted with a tracking collar. At dawn, breathing out clouds in the icy morning, we gathered at the lodge. I had a lovely freshly squeezed orange juice. Then also a cup of coffee, because it smelled so divine. I shouldn’t have.
“Hurry. Let’s go” said our ranger. Onto the game viewing vehicle came Brits, an English opera star who had been knighted, his “lady” and their friends, Lord and Lady of something or other. Two sweet Swedes. We didn’t know anyone. We took the back seats. High up, but the bounciest.
After about an hour the sun had risen, warming our backs. We bounced across boulders and rocked and swayed around, avoiding washed out dongas on the rough terrain. Then a bladder message. “I need to go,” I whispered to my husband.
“Knyp.”
Knypping wasn’t working. In the bush, this is a situation more difficult for women than men. Especially with a group of toffeenosed foreigners. Excitement was mounting.
“Found her,” our ranger announced, standing and lifting his tracking receiver high. “Close now. Sibella.”
A few bounces later, he stopped the vehicle. “Right here. Still invisible in the bush.”
He instructed everyone to leave the vehicle and follow him, silently, on foot, to track Sibella.
This was the moment I had been praying for. As the group went off to the right, I found a convenient bush to the left. I rushed, off, squatted, probably conducting the fastest pee of the century, while my husband danced from foot to foot, waving “Hurry up!” Relief.
We scampered off to join the tail end of the tracking group, the ranger checking his antenna constantly.
It seemed to me we had done a circle. This was confirmed as we spotted our vehicle through the thicket. We tiptoed past what had been “my spot” only minutes before.
I felt faint, daring not say a word. “She came right past here, moving fast,” said our ranger.
I felt sick. We had been told that cheetah are not aggressive to humans. They mean upright human beings probably. Had Sibella passed silently behind me? What might she have made of the back of a squatting human? If hungry enough she might have thought it was a succulent aardvark. Breakfast. Phew!
We found her about 10 minutes later where she had paused and we had our close, clear view of the beautiful creature. Safely from the top seat of the heavy vehicle.
She yawned. “My, what big teeth she has,” from my ever-wicked husband. Grinning.