08/20/2023

Males in a coalition are able to hold territory, hunt big game, and share the responsibility of surveying environment for danger, and in general live longer than singletons. In addition, if one of the members of the coalition loses the ability to hunt, his teammates share the prey with him, thereby helping the male to recover. The loss of one partner from a pair is fraught for the remaining male, but cheetahs adapt to new conditions for survival.
Milele (forever) and Mbili (two) and their sister Kuahidi were born in July 2016 to a female Kiraposhe. When the cubs were 16 months old, the mother left them, and after another 4 months, the sister left her brothers. Since then, the brothers have been together, parting for a short time while courting different females.
December 19, 2022 Milele was alone, desperately calling for his brother, who returned the next day. At this time, we discovered that Milele was lame. The temporary lameness did not prevent the coalition from moving around different conservancies, avoiding enemies, and even courting females. On December 21 and 22, 2022, Milele mated with Kisaru on a par with Mbili and participated in the hunt to the best of his ability. He finally recovered by the end of May 2023. But it was at this time that a sad event happened – Milele lost his brother. The brothers were last seen together on May 15 when they successfully hunted a young zebra together at the border of the MNC and Lemek conservancies. After that, they disappeared for 16 days, and on May 31, Milele appeared alone in Lemek. He behaved calmly, did not call his brother and successfully hunted. It seemed from his behavior that he was no longer looking for his brother and accepted the need to survive alone. Interestingly, usually single males do not hunt large game, however, if the male lived in a coalition, then after losing a partner, he will hunt large ungulates for some time. So did Milele, who killed a large male bushbuck.
Seven years is a critical age for cheetahs, especially for males, whose average life expectancy in the wild is 3 years. It is to be hoped that the varied survival experience gained during his life in the coalition will help Milele stay in good shape and contribute multiple times to the gene pool of the Mara cheetah population.

07/07/2023

Cheetahs born and raised in the Serengeti and on the border with the Maasai Mara, after reaching the age of independence, begin to travel in search of convenient habitats and in doing so visit places that they once visited with their mother. Furthermore, females not only visit the Mara for a short time, but even give birth to cubs here. This happened with Siligi, the sister of Olpadan (a former member of the Tano Bora coalition). Siligi became famous in 2019 by being the first female in the Maasai Mara with a documented litter of 7 cubs. So far, she has given birth three times in the Maasai Mara National Reserve (MMNR), but to date has raised one litter of 3 males out of 5 born. These cubs were born in the MMNR in 2021 and brought up in Serengeti. After reaching the age of independence, sons, unlike daughters, go quite far from the territories and home ranges of their mothers, which is a natural limiter of inbreeding (close-breeding). While some juveniles are settling into the vast areas of Tanzania and we are losing track of their fate, some adolescents, mostly males, are showing up in the Mara. Yesterday a very significant event happened both for the cheetah population of the Maasai Mara and for the Mara Triangle – one of the most successful conservancies in cheetah conservation. In the morning, 3 new cheetahs were spotted by rangers and guides. By the fact that they were not afraid of cars, it was clear that they had been to the Mara before. Three healthy 3-year-old males – the sons of Siligi intensively mastered new territories: they were sniffing trees, bushes, hills and points on the roads, and marked those, where they found marks left by other cheetahs. So far, 8 adult cheetahs have been seen in the Mara Triangle: 2 females (Risasi, born in the reserve), Naado (a female from Tanzania) and 5 males: 3 sons of Siligi (born in the reserve), Mpaka (a Tanzanian male), as well as Risasi’s brothers – Ruka and Rafiki. Oloti, a Tanzanian male, is currently in the reserve. While the new males are getting to know the new areas that Ruka and Rafiki’s coalition is using, the latter may move away to avoid a territorial conflict that can be dangerous for all of its members. It will be very interesting to follow further events and this new coalition in the Mara.

06/30/2023

The Mara-Serengeti ecosystem stretches over 40,000 sq. km, and since the animals move freely through it, every 3-4 months new cheetahs appear in the Mara. Most often these are young males wandering in search of suitable territories. If the area is controlled by a coalition, the loner has to move away for a while to avoid clashes. At the beginning of July 2020, a young male, named Oloti (Young Boy in Maa), appeared in the Mara Triangle. In early September, he crossed the Mara River and started exploring the Maasai Mara National Reserve, but after 2 months he returned to the Triangle. His appearance in Mara coincided with the emergence of a new coalition – Rosetta’s two sons – Ruka and Rafiki, who gained independence in March 2020 and began to travel around the Mara, reaching the Triangle in May 2020. From then until now, Oloti’s movements from the Triangle to the Reserve and back are partly dictated by movements of this coalition. In February 2023, Oloti appeared in the Reserve thin and limping on his right hind leg and with several wounds on his body, apparently from a collision with a predator. Since the male could not take care of himself, he was assisted by the rangers of the Reserve and the KWS Mobile Vet Unit. Since the male was extremely shy (and still is) and preferred to spend much of his time in thick bushes and forests, he was difficult to monitor. In the first ten days of March, Oloti crossed the river and settled in Triangle, where he was assisted and constantly monitored by the Rangers of the Mara Conservancy. The male gradually recovered, independently hunted a variety of game (hares, young and adult gazelles) and gradually got used to the presence of tourist cars. When Ruka and Rafiki returned to the Triangle from the Serengeti, Oloti again moved to the Reserve. Since he still limps, albeit barely noticeable, he has adapted to hunt in dense bush at any time of the day when the opportunity arises. Yesterday he successfully brought down an adult impala after 18:00 in the thick bushes along Talek river. The process of recovery in the wild, where cheetahs have to move intensively, is long. For example, Milele (brother of Mbili), who started limping in December 2022, fully recovered only in 5 months. Mbili was hunting and sharing meals with his brother, which facilitated the process of recovery. For Oloti if would have been hard to survive, but the well-coordinated and efficient work of the rangers of the Reserve, Mara Triangle and the KWS Mara Vet Unit team made it possible to provide urgent timely assistance to the cheetah, which contributed to his recovery. We are very grateful to the guides of the Mara Intrepids and Asilia, and all the guides for their help in locating Oloti, which allowed the doctors and rangers to carry out all necessary activities. Only together we can save these magnificent animals!

06/10/2023

One of the criteria for the success of male cheetahs is the ability to establish and maintain territory. If there are coalitions in the area, it is more difficult for a loner to hold the territory, and he becomes a floater. The key to the success of a singleton is the strength and ability to protect his territory from other loners, driving them away. Males deal with competitors very aggressively – they attack, and if the intruder did not run away, he could get seriously injured in a fight. This partly explains the short life expectancy of young males – about 3 years. Jaziri, a male born and brought up by Amani in the northern part of the Mara, firmly settled in Sopa a year ago, and within a year drove out Olanyuani, a male who had lost his coalition-mate in July 2021. The territories of the females overlap with those of the males, and some individuals get to know each other well. Recently in Sopa we observed two females and a male within 1,5 km: Siligi, which spends most of her time in the Serengeti, Nashipai and Jaziri. It is interesting that on the same day, but at a distance from each other, Siligi and Jaziri actively marked objects and often climbed termite mounds, examining the area, and Jaziri also called loudly. The next day, we found Jaziri with Nashipai, and he delicately and uncertainly followed her, and the female made no attempt to leave the male. On this day, Siligi watched the couple from afar. She is well acquainted with Jaziri, as they have met before. On the third day, the situation changed: Jaziri lost interest in Nashipai, but did not let her leave. When she managed to move away at 100m and lie down on a mound, the male approached her with very specific intentions – now she was not a mating partner, but a territorial competitor. Jaziri attacked Nashipai in the same manner as the males: he walked around with a howl and periodically pounced. The female fought back and assumed a pose of submission, and after a series of attacks, the male left her alone and mover away. Since Jaziri sniffed her resting-places without flehmen response (an olfactory mechanism for identifying the reproductive state of females based on pheromones in the female’s urine or genitals), Nashipai was not in estrus, but the males are not always ready to give up, and keep the female hostage for at least a full day. The receptivity I cheetahs lasts for 3 days, and Jaziri may have missed his chance to mate with Siligi that time, while following Nashipai. However, the female will come in estrus within a month and will actively advertise her state of readiness for breeding, leaving messages for the male by scent marking. And then very likely they will succeed.

05/23/2023

The cheetah population in the Maasai Mara Ecosystem is not stable and fluctuates over the years and throughout each year. In some years, recruitment exceeds the death rate, or vice versa. Once every few months, we observe new individuals that come from the unprotected areas around the Mara or from Tanzania. Since October 2022, 13 new cheetahs have appeared in the Mara: 12 males and one female. At the Sand River area of the reserve, we observed a coalition of two young males, a coalition of 3 – in Ripoi conservancy, and 4 different single extremely shy males appeared in the following conservancies: Olarro, Olderkesi, Naboisho and Enonkishu. In the Mara Triangle, from July 2022 to March 2023, 4 new cheetahs were observed – 3 males and one female. In October 2022, a coalition of 2 very shy males briefly appeared on the Siria escarpment. In July 2022, a young male was first sighted on the Serengeti border and later named Mpaka (“Border”). In addition to them, from October 2022 to date, 4 adult cheetahs have been seen: Risasi with cubs, her brothers Ruka and Rafiki (who spend a lot of time in the Serengeti), as well as the male Oloti. Moreover, in March, a new female, named by the Triangle rangers Naado, settled in the Mara Triangle. Naado is the daughter of Siligi and is the only one out of 7 cubs, who survived to independence from that litter born in October 2019. She is currently in the last trimester of pregnancy. The various conservation activities that the rangers are constantly performing in the Mara Triangle, including successful cheetah monitoring program, allow the cheetahs to feel more comfortable, and their movements are influenced not by anthropogenic, but by natural factors – such as the distribution and composition of other predators and prey, as well as weather conditions. The fact that a pregnant female has been in Conservancy for a long time is very inspiring.