Cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus)- Data, Pictures & Videos

[Spalea]

Paul McKenzie: " Apologies for the long silence but my wifi has been very patchy for the last few weeks. Am now back in Nairobi after three weeks co-leading photo tours and now on my way to London. I also made a brief excursion to the far north of Kenya where I think I managed my best ever wildlife image. Certainly it is one that I have high hopes for. Of course it maybe that in a month or two my enthusiasm may wane after repeated viewings but right now I’m pretty excited. But the main focus was the Mara, my twenty second year in a row and to which I have now made well over 30 trips. While one fears for the long term future of the park given the explosion in new camps and cattle/goats in the conservancy areas, there is still no other wildlife destination that can match it for the density of game and the degree of predation. In keeping with the latter theme, I’m leading off with one of the five cheetahs (a coalition of two pairs of brothers and another single male) which have rightly gained infamy for their prodigious predatory skills, on the back of a young wildebeest. Predicting which way the prey will flee from a pursuing cheetah (in this case, five) is always a bit of a lottery but thanks to the skill of our drivers, our group was in exactly the right position for the take-down. This is a decent image but is thoroughly eclipsed by the efforts of an 80-year old in our first group (the one-and-only Sally Foster), who managed a truly award-winning front-on shot of wildebeest and cheetah with the latter looking straight at the camera. "

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