On a recent Wednesday morning, a child excitedly ran up to the cheetah exhibit in the Wilds of Africa at the Dallas Zoo.
“Look, they’re back!” he called to his family, who trailed behind him.
Two cheetahs sat toward the back of the habitat, nearly perfectly blended in with the tan rocks and green foliage of the terrain.
The two cats arrived in June from The Wilds conservation center in Columbus, Ohio, and spend most of their days lounging in the shade, occasionally panting through the Texas summer heat.
Their arrival comes about four months after the zoo’s last cheetah, Kilima, died of old age. The new cheetahs, brothers named Brutus and Finnick, made their public debut in mid-July.
Much like a housecat, “they really just eat and sleep” most of the day, said lead zoologist Shayna Kramb. At 8 years old, both are past their prime, meaning they behave more like older house cats than the fierce, fast predators they are in their youth.
“This is more of a retirement home setting,” Kramb said.
While they’re now comfortable in their habitat, even going so far as to prefer it to their cool, indoor space, their transition hasn’t been easy. Zoo staff have been working tirelessly since their arrival to bring one of the zoo’s most popular animals back on public display.
Cautious creatures
Kilima’s death came about two years after her sibling, Bonde, died at age 13. After Kilima died, the Dallas Zoo put out a call for cheetahs to other zoos accredited through the Association of Zoos and Aquariums.
Brutus and Finnick were the boys for the job — the pair lived at The Wilds for breeding purposes, and at age 8 were no longer fit to mate.
But the brothers’ background at a conservation center meant they had to overcome significant challenges when they arrived in Dallas.
After undergoing a mandatory 30-day quarantine period at the zoo’s hospital, it was time to start introducing them to their new home.
“Obviously being moved across the country is a big change, and it can be pretty stressful,” Kramb said. “It took them a little longer than we expected to get used to the habitat.”
Despite being known for their speed and agility, cheetahs are considered more of a prey animal in Africa. They are hunted by animals like hyenas, painted dogs, lions and leopards, Kramb said.
Cheetahs generally are nervous and skittish animals, she said. These anxious tendencies made the first obstacle for Brutus and Finnick — getting used to being around their caretakers — hard to overcome.
At The Wilds, the two had minimal contact with humans.
“Brutus was fine with the keepers,” Kramb said. But Finnick “didn’t even like us being in the building before. We had to just sit very calmly and drop his food, and just be like, ‘It’s okay, we’re not here to hurt you.’ ... Finnick has learned that, ‘Hey, I can come over to eat and you are not that scary.’”
Caretakers work with the animals multiple times a day to get them more used to human interaction. The next goal is to get the brothers ready for vaccinations by mid-October. Staff have started with getting the two used to the touch of a finger and will progressively work their way up to a needle.
The brothers also had to adjust to their new habitat. Not only is it much smaller than what they were used to at The Wilds, but they had to get comfortable being viewed by guests, too.
Caretakers gave them access to tunnels in the habitat that connect to the indoor holding area and let them come out as they were ready.
“They would hide in the tunnels and peek out, and then each day they’d put a paw out and they’d peek a little longer, and then one day they’re like, ‘Okay, we’ll step out,’” Kramb said.
The team also found out that the cheetahs took a liking to a raised bed that was used by the zoo’s previous cheetahs. Each day, they’d move the bed a little further into the habitat to encourage the brothers to venture out.
“You could see them behind it but they felt like it was like a little safety blanket,” Kramb said. “So we just kept moving it out and then they realized, ‘Hey, it’s not that bad out here. Nothing bad is happening.’”
While progress was initially slow, the cheetahs now spend entire days out in the habitat, Kramb said. They even prefer to stay there when given the option to come indoors.
“Every day they get a little more comfortable,” she said.
Conservation efforts
With fewer than 7,000 left in the wild, cheetahs are considered in danger of extinction, Kramb said.
The Dallas Zoo supports efforts to conserve the population both locally and in their habitats in Africa.
Cheetahs are part of the zoo’s Protecting the Twelve program, an initiative that outlines 12 conservation priorities across 12 years for species in Asia, Africa and the United States.
The zoo is about halfway through the 12-year program, which also includes conservation efforts for African elephants, African penguins, African vultures, giraffes, gorillas, okapis, rhinoceroses, Saharan hoofstock, tigers, turtles and tortoises, and Texas native wildlife.
Species identified under the program can be thought of as “umbrella species” because conserving their populations and habitats can help protect a host of other animals in their environments.
“If you can save this one, there’s all these other ones that are connected to them through the ecosystem, either as animals that they hunt for, or that they helped provide habitat for, or are connected somehow in the ecosystem,” said Chris Corpus, director of conservation at the zoo.
Under Protecting the Twelve, the zoo works to combat the three main threats to cheetah populations: climate change, human conflict and habitat loss, Corpus said.
The zoo partners with and financially supports organizations and programs in Africa, including the Cheetah Conservation Fund, to carry out conservation efforts.
One such program involves providing dogs to farmers in Africa to help protect livestock. African farmers hunt cheetahs to prevent them from killing livestock, a practice that has greatly threatened the species, Corpus said.
“We call them cheetah dogs. These are dogs that get raised with different types of livestock, whether it’s goats or sheep or cattle,” Corpus said. “These are big, scary dogs that feel like they’re part of the herd, and then bark and warn off any sort of predator, whether it’s lions, hyenas or cheetahs. And that sort of helps the farmers then not feel like their herds are threatened.”
The zoo also funds programs that teach poachers other skills so that they don’t resort to illegal hunting.
“A lot of times we think about poachers being the sort of evil person that’s going out and killing animals, but truthfully it’s usually someone who’s just trying to feed their family,” Corpus said.
The zoo also supports programs that help rescue cheetah cubs from the illegal pet trade and rehabilitate them so they can either be released back into the wild or raised at zoos.
How to help from home
The zoo has started an initiative called “Cheetahs Under Pressure” to educate the public about how to help save the cheetah population here at home.
Corpus offered one simple way to help save cheetahs: keep tires properly inflated. Many people unknowingly drive on under-inflated tires, making their car produce more carbon dioxide than necessary and contributing to climate change, which, in turn, causes longer and more severe droughts and storms, he said.
“And those things are all starting to affect habitats across the world,” he said. “In areas where cheetahs live, it’s making it harder for prey to find food, and then that means cheetahs don’t have prey to hunt for.”
Corpus said the cheetah exhibit is important because it helps guests connect with the animal, bringing them a step closer to taking action toward conservation.
“It’s really cool for me to hear that people build that relationship, both with us at the zoo, but also with those animals specifically, because that means they’re on that precipice of wanting to do something,” he said. “They care enough that they want to see them again, and now hopefully we can help them make those choices to [help conserve].”
