Entrance De Wildt Cheetah Research Centre, South Africa

The De Wildt Cheetah and Wildlife Centre, also known as Ann van Dyk Cheetah Centre is a

captive breeding Captive breeding, also known as captive propagation, is the process of plants or animals in controlled environments, such as wildlife reserves, zoos, botanic gardens, and other conservation facilities. It is sometimes employed to help species tha ...

facility for

South African cheetah The Southeast African cheetah (''Acinonyx jubatus jubatus'') is the nominate cheetah subspecies native to East and Southern Africa. The Southern African cheetah lives mainly in the lowland areas and deserts of the Kalahari, the savannahs of Okav ...

s and other animals that is situated in the foothills of the

Magaliesberg The Magaliesberg (historically also known as ''Macalisberg'' or ''Cashan Mountains'') of northern South Africa, is a modest but well-defined mountain range composed mainly of quartzites. It rises at a point south of the Pilanesberg (and the Pi ...

mountain range (near Brits and the

Hartbeespoort Dam Hartbeespoort Dam (also known as ''Harties'') is an arch type dam situated in the North West Province of South Africa. It lies in a valley to the south of the Magaliesberg mountain range and north of the Witwatersberg mountain range, about 35 kil ...

) in the

North West Province North West is a province of South Africa. Its capital is Mahikeng. The province is located to the west of the major population centre of Gauteng and south of Botswana. History North West was incorporated after the end of Apartheid in 1994, an ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...

History

The centre is situated on what was originally Van Dyk's parent's chicken farm, which they acquired in 1950. Due to her compassionate nature, Ann soon had a collection of stray and injured animals on the farm. Then, in October 1968, a local farmer offered her two cheetah cubs, which she accepted. However, the cubs had been acquired without the necessary permits and, when they enquired about obtaining these permits, the cubs were confiscated and sent to the

National Zoological Gardens of South Africa The National Zoological Garden of South Africa (also informally known as The Pretoria Zoo) is an zoo located in Pretoria, South Africa. It is the national zoo of South Africa, and was founded by J. W. B. Gunning in 1899. Pretoria Zoo is one of t ...

Pretoria Pretoria () is South Africa's administrative capital, serving as the seat of the executive branch of government, and as the host to all foreign embassies to South Africa. Pretoria straddles the Apies River and extends eastward into the footh ...

. Meanwhile, the Zoo had already established a successful captive breeding programme, but further expansion was limited due to the lack of land available in its urban setting. Consequently, they had been considering acquiring a more rural breeding site. Ann and her eldest brother, Godfrey, thus offered to the Zoo management the use of their facilities for captive breeding programmes. This offer was accepted and the centre officially opened on 16 April 1971. Ann van Dyk received a gold medal from the South African Nature Foundation in 1988.

Other breeding programmes

Subsequent to its cheetah breeding programme, the centre also established successful breeding programmes for several other rare and endangered species, including: *

Wild dog A free-ranging dog is a dog that is not confined to a yard or house. Free-ranging dogs include street dogs, village dogs, stray dogs, feral dogs, etc., and may be owned or unowned. The global dog population is estimated to be 900 million, of ...

Brown hyena The brown hyena (''Parahyaena brunnea''), also called strandwolf, is a species of hyena found in Namibia, Botswana, western and southern Zimbabwe, southern Mozambique and South Africa. It is the only extant species in the genus ''Parahyaena''. It ...

Suni The Suni (''Nesotragus moschatus'') is a small antelope. It occurs in dense underbrush from central Kenya to KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa. Suni are around high at the shoulder and weigh . They are usually reddish brown, darker on their back ...

Duiker A duiker is a small to medium-sized brown antelope native to sub-Saharan Africa, found in heavily wooded areas. The 22 extant species, including three sometimes considered to be subspecies of the other species, form the subfamily Cephalophinae ...

Cape vulture The Cape vulture (''Gyps coprotheres''), also known as Cape griffon and Kolbe's vulture, is an Old World vulture in the family ''Accipitridae''. It is endemic to southern Africa, and lives mainly in South Africa, Lesotho, Botswana, and in some pa ...

* Riverine rabbit

Notable achievements

The centre first achieved international recognition for bringing the cheetah back from the brink of extinction - it was largely due to the centre that the cheetah was removed from the

endangered species An endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction. Endangered species may be at risk due to factors such as habitat loss, poaching and invas ...

list of the ''South African Red Data Book for Terrestrial Mammals'' in 1986. Its success can be seen from the fact that, since its inception, over 600 cheetah cubs have been born at the centre, which is a dramatic increase from the period when the total cheetah population of South Africa was estimated at only 700. In 2009, it was estimated that 800 cheetah cubs have been bred so far. In addition to its cheetah breeding success, the centre has also had other notable successes: * The first breeder of the rare king cheetah. As a result, it was proved that the king cheetah was not a separate species, but merely a striped variation of the standard spotted cheetah. * The breeding and release of captive-born African wild dog packs (

southern Africa Southern Africa is the southernmost subregion of the African continent, south of the Congo and Tanzania. The physical location is the large part of Africa to the south of the extensive Congo River basin. Southern Africa is home to a number of ...

's most endangered

carnivore A carnivore , or meat-eater (Latin, ''caro'', genitive ''carnis'', meaning meat or "flesh" and ''vorare'' meaning "to devour"), is an animal or plant whose food and energy requirements derive from animal tissues (mainly muscle, fat and other so ...

) into their natural habitat. * A breeding nucleus of the highly endangered riverine rabbit has been donated to the

Karoo The Karoo ( ; from the Afrikaans borrowing of the South Khoekhoe !Orakobab or Khoemana word ''ǃ’Aukarob'' "Hardveld") is a semi-desert natural region of South Africa. No exact definition of what constitutes the Karoo is available, so its e ...

National Park, the natural habitat of the species. * A breeding nucleus of the Suni antelope was donated to the

Kruger National Park Kruger National Park is a South African National Park and one of the largest game reserves in Africa. It covers an area of in the provinces of Limpopo and Mpumalanga in northeastern South Africa, and extends from north to south and from e ...

as a resulting of the centre's highly successful Suni breeding programme. Between 1975 and 2005, 242 litters were born with a total of 785 cubs. In a study done by Bertschinger, H. J., Meltzer, D. J. A., & Van Dyk, A. (2008), the survival rate of cubs was examined. "Mean cub survival from 1 to 12 months and greater than 12 months of age was 71.3 and 66.2%, respectively." This study shows that cheetahs can be bred successfully and that their endangerment can be decreased through these breeding programs.

References

External links

De Wildt Cheetah and Wildlife Centre
{{Coord, -25.67372, 27.9237, display=inline,title Nature reserves in South Africa Nature conservation in South Africa