A three-week-old female African Cheetah cub is now on exhibit in the Cincinnati Zoo’s Nursery. She was born at the zoo’s regional Cheetah breeding facility in Clermont County on June 22, but she had to be moved to the zoo’s Nursery after her mother, Lucy, (this is her first litter) could not provide adequate care. In an effort to get the cub back up to speed, zoo nursery keepers are bottle feeding the cub six times a day, every 2.5 hours.
To survive, Cheetahs need large tracts of land where they can find enough prey to hunt. Illegal hunting of the small antelope on which they depend has dramatically diminished Cheetah numbers in the wild. Local farmers in East and Southern Africa must learn to maintain their livestock and coexist with wild Cheetahs. Methods including the use of fencing, guard dogs, and donkeys to protect livestock and have helped to conserve the wild prey base and habitat.
The Zoo’s breeding facility is one of only four similar facilities in the United States managed by the Species Survival Plan. In total, there have been 64 cheetah cubs born in Cincinnati.