There’s a cheetah on my seat!

Posted on 2 July, 2015 by Guest Blogger in Animal Encounters — 19 Comments ↓

Posted: July 2, 2015

Written by: Elephant Pepper Camp

Earlier this month, while on a game drive in Maasai Mara National Reserve, some of the guests of Elephant Pepper Camp enjoyed a rather unusual sighting.

One of the guides had spotted a female cheetah and her four cubs hunting some Thompson’s gazelle.

In order not to disturb proceedings the guides stayed put, watching from a distance. All of a sudden the female cheetah decided to jump onto the roof of the vehicle with three of her cubs following.

The fourth cub also jumped onto the roof – but unlike the rest of his family which used the rear spare wheel for leverage, he attempted to clamber up the side of the vehicle but ended up landing on a seat! He was as surprised as the guests!

The guide advised everyone to stay calm and wait until the cub moved on – he did not want to panic or injure the cheetah and put the guests in any danger.

Sure enough, the young cheetah soon jumped down and the mother and other cubs left too, heading off to pursue other adventures…

While we are used to these lovely cats being very relaxed around guests, we have to admit this is the most relaxed we’ve seen them!

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http://www.wild-wings-safaris.com/ Onne Vegter
Amazing sighting, impressed that everyone stayed calm and recognised this was not an attack. What a story to tell!
Deborah F Titus
Oh my goodness my heart might race the beats faster than I would have sightseeing the wide swath of wildlife afield. How beautiful that cheetah looks to me, so brilliantly designed for the cheetah to be gazed upon! I would probably be tempted to pet that cheetah’s head!
Des
A cheetah licked the back of my head 😀
Tamar Caters
Hi! My name is Tamar Johnson and I work on the picture desk of Caters News Agency. I would love to get in contact with David to discuss these images and potentially put an article together for the national press. Does anyone know David, or could put me into contact with someone who does? My email address is tamar@catersnews.com and I can also be reached at 0121 616 1100.
Best,
Tamar
- Bench International
  I know him and have sent him a message with a link to your comment so hopefully he will be in touch.
Gill
The poor guys eyes look as if they are about to pop out his head. Quite an experience and tale to tell when he gets home
Faniso C Zimunya
Woooooow I would be in such a state. But there really is nothing you can do but wait to see what happens. Gosh! Talk about a safari experience. They will never forget it I’ll bet.
Viccy Baker
Let’s run a caption competition for the second picture – here’s my contribution: “Pass the toilet paper please!
Linda Horsfield
Is this not an example of hand reared cubs being released into the wild – or at least cubs born to a mother that is used to humans?
Lori
Just looking at the photos my heart is racing! To be near such a beautiful animal..WOW!
Safari Camp Life
This should not have happened in the first place and is certainly nothing to be proud of. Unfortunately, by posting these photos you are setting a precedent. Now, thanks to you, I look forward to hearing future guests say, “Oh wow! Did you see those cheetahs in the vehicle? Do you think our guide could make that happen?” It’s nice that you all managed to stay so calm but by allowing this to happen, the guide in question has crossed a line. What happens if the next time, the guests in the vehicle aren’t so calm? The Masai Mara already suffers from completely unprofessional driving and guest habits and this incident is adding to the story. If you truly cared about these animals you would remove these photos from this website.
- Alfredo
  Thats part to the game no worries kbl781
- Carole Deschuymere
  i totally agree. I cannot believe AFRICA GEOGRAPHIC is ok with this stupid behaviour. they should know better!!!!
- Groot
  absolutely agree. unfortunately, now people will expect to at least to see a cheetah jump onto the jeep… oooo.. maybe we can touch!?!… smdh
  - Safari Camp Life
    Yesterday, the mother of this cheetah took a mobile phone out of the hand of a guide who was taking photos of her on the roof of his vehicle. The guide snatched it back. As other people have pointed out, cheetahs aren’t naturally aggressive to humans but it doesn’t mean that this interaction is ok. Anyway, I don’t want to come across as one of those pious, holier-than-thou people but this is very frustrating!
voteforpedro
Horrendous. A respectable guide should have prevented this from happening. The guiding community knows better than this. For the best welfare of wildlife and guests NO wildlife should ever enter a vehicle or even sit up on top of a vehicle. Unfortunately with all of the ‘wow, that’s awesome’ kind of comments it only fuels the desire from guests who don’t understand the risks and guides want to earn their gratuities.
Tiffany Davis
I watched a documentary on cheetahs and they normally do not attack human. In the documentary a man ran into a cheetah that kept lunging at him. He only needed to use his foot to kick her in the chest to protect himself. They captured her because of her off behavior and turned out she had rabies. If this was any other big cat I would be way more concerned. But if you watch Big Cat Diary the cheetahs are often on the vehicles.
Butplug Maximus
This sort of thing isn’t without precedent.. Cheetahs have been known to use vehicle roofs as lookout spots. It’s been said they look at these vehicles as “mobile termite mounds” which they use to their advantage while hunting prey.
The fact is, the cheetah cub was bit clumsy and didn’t follow mom’s lead unlike the siblings… In this regard, it was an accident.
That said, the only way to prevent cheetahs from using vehicles as lookout towers is to stop these safari tours all together and that’s not happening. There’s too much money in tourism that would be lost.
In truth, cheetahs are least likely to attack anyone as long as the people in the car kept calm – and apparently they did otherwise we would have heard about the tragedy that didn’t happen. Cheetahs require their prey to RUN in order for the cat’s prey response to be triggered. As long as everyone stays still, no problem. There are many videos of cheetahs looking at a Thompson’s Gazelle fawn lying still sitting in front of them – and they were clueless as to what to do about it.
At least the cat didn’t decide to mark the vehicle as territory..
Sylvia Rütten
I think the guide couldnt do any better, it wa steh decision of the cheetahs to climb up the roof. it would have bee n dangerous to chase them away. It is always best to stay calm and do nothing. I know the gudies from elepahnt pepper camp they are very good and obey all roules.

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