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Californian puts Cheetah Outreach on her Cape wine country travel agenda (2)
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Gutgesell and cub charges: Heathcliff, below, and Felix, bottom left.
Continued from Californian puts Cheetah Outreach on her Cape wine country travel agenda (1)
“It took 4 million years of evolution for the cheetah to become the exceptional animal it is today and only 100 years for man to place it on the endangered list. Now the fastest land animal in the world is losing its most important race: the race for survival." — From the Cheetah Outreach site.
Wineries in the Stellenbosch region collaborate with Cheetah Outreach on both the cheetah project and the Anatolian Guard Dog project.
In 1997, Spier wine estate donated land for the establishment of Cheetah Outreach.
Subsequently, Eikendal wine estate donated property where volunteers like Gutgesell live with the cheetah cubs they are hand-raising — in a house appropriately called Cub House.
The prime focus of Cheetah Outreach is to raise awareness about the plight of the cheetah — the world’s fastest land animal — and to campaign for its survival.
"At the turn of the 20th century, an estimated 100,000 cheetahs lived throughout Africa and in parts of the Middle East and Central Asia. Today there are just 7,500 cheetahs left and South Africa is home to fewer than 1,000 of these majestic cats.” — From the Cheetah Outreach site.
The Turkish Anatolian shepherd [dog], 
bred to protect livestock from bears and wolves, has a history that dates back more than 6,000 years. To date, during the pilot study breeding and introducing the dogs to South African farmers, livestock losses have reduced by more than 95 percent. The project is a collaboration between Cheetah Outreach, De Wildt and the international Cheetah Conservation Fund.
“Because most cheetahs in southern Africa live outside protected areas, on farmland, they realized that the survival of the species depends on reducing conflict between farmers and cheetahs by finding non-lethal methods to protect livestock from predators,” says Gutgesell.
The dogs bond with the farm animals and effectively scare off predators, protecting the goats, sheep, cattle and other livestock.
So: What did Gutgesell do while in South Africa?
To be continued.
For more info. This is Part 2 of a four-part story. See Part 1 of Californian puts Cheetah Outreach on her Cape wine country travel agenda here, Part 3 of Californian puts Cheetah Outreach on her Cape wine country travey agenda and Part 4 of Californian puts Cheetah Outreach on her Cape wine country travel agenda. Or read Oakland and South Africa connect. So what does Cheetah Outreach have to do with it?
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