Cheetah's @ Spier by CAROLINEARCHER
Spier has made land available to a group of hand-raised cheetahs in the care of the Cheetah Outreach Programme. Visitors can learn more about these incredible cats from a distance, or get up close and personal and even step inside the enclosure. The entrance donations help fund the Cheetah Outreach Programme & the cheetahs can even be booked for private functions.The Cheetah Outreach assists the Cheetah Conservation Fund in their efforts to ensure the survival of the free-ranging cheetah. This is done through education programmes that increase the awareness of the diminishing numbers of free-ranging cheetahs in the wild.
Funds are raised for CCF to support their efforts in releasing trapped, wild cheetah and non-lethal predator control methods (i.e. placement of guard dogs in Namibian farmlands).
Cheetah Outreach was founded by Annie Beckhelling in January 1997 on a hectare of land donated by Spier. The education programme began with two cheetahs: Inca (6-year old male) whose role was to greet visitors at Spier and Shadow (1-year old male) who travelled to community events. At Spier, with an annual visitor-ship of 650,000 people, the cheetah ambassadors are able to greet more than 10% of the guests.
By 1998 Shadow and his young nephew Nyana-Spier already greeted in excess of 100,000 people.