Call out for help by the Cheetah Outreach Trust

Wednesday, December 23, 2020

2020 has been a tough year for everyone all over the world and the Cheetah Outreach Trust has not escaped unscathed.

Cheetah Outreach has two divisions – the income generating visitor and tourist facility in Somerset West and the Cheetah Outreach Trust that is responsible for in situ cheetah and predator conservation on farmlands in South Africa and education.

The Cheetah Outreach facility is struggling to keep its doors open due to the impact of Covid-19 on tourism. A percentage of the income from the facility used to be channelled towards the Cheetah Outreach Trust, but this stream of funding has obviously now dried up.

In order to continue, maintain and expand on the important cheetah and predator conservation work that the Trust has been carrying out since 2005 as well as maintaining the good relationships with the farming communities where these cheetahs and predators occur and live, we need your help! (See below how you can help).

During 2020 the Trust has placed 17 Anatolian livestock guardian dogs on livestock and game farms in the current free ranging cheetah range – a total of 336 dogs have been placed since 2005! Currently the Trust has secured 505,000 Ha predator-safe habitat through the placement of these dogs and the ongoing relationships and trust forged with these farmers.

But the Trust’s work goes further than securing and maintaining viable habitat corridors for cheetah and other vulnerable predators…. the Trust, together with other organisations continues to work together to promote a culture of cheetah conservation on farmlands and has released a cheetah that had been caught in a gin trap and recovered into the North West province. This was done with the cooperation of a few key cheetah conservation organisations, private individuals and government authorities and is a milestone for cheetah conservation in South Africa and the second of many cheetahs to be collared and monitored on farmland areas. With the tracking device, our field officer, Cyril Stannard, found the cheetah at his recent juvenile gemsbok kill. Information gathered as well as GPS satellite movement data maps are shared with the farmers and role-players to ensure that a better understanding of cheetahs on farmlands areas is established.

Please can you help in any way?

Make a once off donation to the running costs of the project.
Make monthly donations either directly or by recurring EFT – every little bit helps.
Subscribe and use your My School/My Planet shopping card with Cheetah Outreach Trust as your charity of choice while shopping at Woolworths for your Christmas goodies.
Help with any items on our wishlist (at the moment for the breeding facility we need chicken mesh and solar kit for electric fence and tyres for the vehicles of our field officers).
Sponsor a newly placed Anatolian livestock guardian dog and claim the opportunity to name the puppy.
Sponsor fuel costs for travel of our field officers.
Sponsor or part sponsor flight for a new Anatolian female breeding dog from Cape Town to Johannesburg.
Leave a bequest to the Trust in your will.