We are happy to report that the farmer has been experiencing no losses since he removed this cheetah. He even adopted one particularly interesting technique suggested by our team, of spreading lion faeces around certain areas of his farm, to try to deter the cheetahs from where his animals are. Cheetahs are naturally afraid of lions, and although he was hesitant when our team arrived with a bag full of lion poop and explained the process, his faith in us led him to give it a try, and so far, it seems to be helping. We look forward to analysing the trends of cheetah movements on the cameras we have placed at the farm to see how this intervention may have altered the behaviour of the cheetahs on his farm. We will also keep a close eye on the number of losses he experiences in the long term, to assess how long his problems remain at bay. For now, we are very glad that he was able to mitigate his problems using a non-lethal solution and we hope that his other techniques are able to minimise his losses in the future. At times we have to be flexible in our approach in order to maintain dialogue with farmers and appreciate both sides of the challenge of human wildlife conflict.
This incident has shone light on how important it is to maintain good working relationships with farmers in core cheetah areas, something that we at CCB take great pride in. We know that farming alongside carnivores can be incredibly challenging, but we implore farmers to try non-lethal solutions first in order to find sustainable, long-term protection of their livestock.