Five cheetah cubs, born in the U.S. by emergency C-section last week, were left orphaned after their mother passed away. If you plan to visit the zoo to have a look at the new Cheetah cubs, you could see them through the nursery windows. Besides climbing around, the cubs also have snuggle time with Blakely and he “provides comfort” that the cubs lost when their mother died, Curley said.
Advertisement
Zoo officials say the cheetahs’ immune systems are not developed very well and they’re not able to actively fight off infections. His first charge, a single cheetah cub named “Savanna”, learned the difference between a playful bite and the start of a fight from Blakely.
Nursery staff have been bottle-feeding the premature cubs every three hours and closely monitoring their weight since their birth but believe that with Blakely’s health, the cubs will grow well.
The Australian Shepherd dog was called in as a surrogate after the newborns lost their mother, Willow, shortly after a C-Section on March 8 in Ohio, America.
Strasser said that Blakely’s first first job will be to let the cubs climb on him.
More than fifty cubs have been born at Mast Farm since the breeding program for the endangered animals launched in 2002.
Since cheetah breeding is most successful in both the wild and in zoo settings when cheetahs have multiple mates to choose from, the cheetah SSP has set up several Regional Cheetah Breeding Facilities in zoos across the US for the objective of breeding genetically important animals.
Now just over 4 months old, they weigh 15 to 20 pounds, the Safari Park says.
Advertisement
The three boys and two girls will remain in the nursery for at least eight to 12 weeks. The cheetah population worldwide is estimated to have dropped from 100,000 in 1900 to about 10,000 now, the news release stated.
