Cheetah conservation in the Mountain Zebra National Park outside Cradock in the Eastern Cape got a welcome boost, with the donation of a cheetah collar that was fitted to one of the park’s resident female felines.“MZNP, the only national park that tracks cheetahs, is home to eight cats, of which four are collared. Activity guides seek out these cheetahs using a very high-frequency telemetry device,” says JP Louw, South African National Parks head of communications.
The collars also enable park management to gather ecological data for research purposes, which helps to manage the species.MZNP first reintroduced cheetah in 2007, with two females from the nearby Samara Karoo Reserve. They had been absent from the plains of the Karoo for 130 years. Two males were introduced not long after, to form a breeding population.
“With growing cheetah populations in confined fenced reserves across South Africa, it was decided that a human-mediated metapopulation approach was required to help maintain the genetic and demographic integrity of these isolated populations and ensure their longevity and conservation value,” says Louw.
The latest fitted collar was donated by avid and regular visitors to the park, Anthony and Martine Armstrong and their family, from the Western Cape. This intervention is expected to further support the successful roll-out of a cheetah population management solution implemented at MZNP.MZNP is an important contributor to Southern Africa’s cheetah conservation efforts.
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