Latest Africat Statistics
WWW.AFRICAT.ORG
OKONJIMA home of the AfriCat Foundation
1/07/1993-30/11/2010
OVER 1000 CATS IN 171/2 YEARS...
Okonjima Nature Reserve - Home of AfriCat
Conservation through Education
Researching Carnivores & Rehabilitating Captive Cheetah
Total cats rescued = 1060
Cheetahs = 684
Leopards = 376
Total cats released/rehabilitated = 906
Cheetahs = 552
Leopards = 354
% Cats released
Cheetahs Released = 80.70%
Leopards Released = 94.15%
Total % cats released = 87.42%
Total died / euthanased = 3.45%
Total % cats kept at AfriCat = 9.13%
AfriCat is able to continue the work it does thanks to the ongoing support of the TRAVEL INDUSTRY.
The statistics speak for themselves!
RESCUE & RELEASE:
Our Rescue & Release programme has been put on hold and not simply ‘stopped’.
AfriCat and other registered carnivore organisations have unfortunately become the dumping ground for carnivores accused of killing livestock. We have ‘saved’ their lives, but ‘removed’ them from their territories, thereby failing in our primary objective, which we had set out to achieve back in 1992….not to remove the predators from their home ranges.
We have rescued and saved the lives of more than a thousand animals from farmland, of which 85% have been released back onto commercial farmland but this time into new territories, belonging to others!
In their new ‘territories’ they need to either fight for their new home or run the ‘gauntlet’ of the farmers’ traps and guns, back to their former territory.
We are therefore uncertain as to how many of the released carnivores survive this re-location beyond one year!
Once funds are available, carnivores will be released back onto farm-land ONLY when we can link this release to a research project including a group of neighbouring farms, hereby creating a larger ‘SAFE’ area for the newly released carnivores; a researcher will be based in this area and the released individuals will be collared. This will enable AfriCat to monitor their post-release movements and adaptability.
In this way, AfriCat will be able to establish the effectiveness and long-term sustainability of their Rescue & Release, Rehabilitation and Relocation Programmes.
For more information about AfriCat’s 2011 and beyond see: http://www.okonjima.com/news_detail.php?news_id=46