REGINA AND JACK, LEVI AND DIESEL, ZIMBABWE

For Jack and Regina, their only source of food is a small plot of land for growing corn and vegetables. However, in recent years, their crops have failed, and with worsening drought, most of the local rivers and wells have dried up. This has forced them to go out and beg for water in the surrounding areas. Sometimes they go for a couple of months with little food, forced to live off charity.

Diesel and Levi’s mother was killed by a farmer who was protecting his livestock. They arrived at Wild Is Life when they were about six weeks old, thin and covered in mange. Wild Is Life managed to nurse them back to health, but because they were so young and domesticated, it was decided that they were not suitable candidates for release. They are taken for walks every day to enrich their lives. Fourteen years old at the time of being photographed, they have had a healthy life. In March 2021, Diesel died at the age of fifteen, a great age for a cheetah, whose average lifespan is 10 to 12 years.

The current situation of cheetahs in Africa is harsh: they have been pushed out of over 90% of their historical distribution range, and the population across the continent has been reduced to less than 7,000 in 2021. At the current rate of decline, cheetahs are heading towards extinction. As always, habitat loss is one of the main reasons. Along with that comes the decline and disappearance of the species they feed on, as they, in turn, are killed by humans for wild animal meat.

Photographed at Wild is Life, Zimbabwe, November 2020.