This breathtaking display of a mother’s loyalty was filmed by Barry Smith just outside of the Crocodile Bridge Camp site in the Kruger National Park. He referred to the cheetah mother as Supermom and on watching the clip, you will see why.
Wild dog pack spotted just off road
Barry explained to Latest Sightings that they had only been driving a few minutes away from the camp site when they saw, just off the road, three wild dogs showing interest in something.
“We recognised the wild dogs because we had followed them down the main road the night before,” he said.
He said that one of their great goals for their trip to the park had been to see the ‘Supermom’ cheetah, who had successfully raised her three cubs in the area.
As things were, Supermom was about to made her grand appearance.
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Wild dogs notice cheetah with grown cubs
The ‘something’ which had attracted the wild dogs’ attention was four cheetahs. These included the mother cheetah and her three reasonably grown cubs.
The pesky pack of wild dogs quickly decided to intimidate the cheetahs and ran around them, their white tails on high alert as they scampered about with frenetic pack activity.
It was soon evident which of the cheetah’s was the mother. She walked towards the wild dogs with boldness and gave a growl as a warning. No wild dog was going to get anywhere near to her cubs.
Mother stands guard over cubs
While the cubs were fairly grown, they were still young; and their mother still assumed full responsibility for them.
She stood guard over the three, refusing to be intimidated by the wild dogs.
Barry explained how elated they were to come across the cheetah family on this first morning drive of their visit to the reserve. However, he explained that he and his son, who he was on the drive with, were dismayed to see the cheetahs being terrorised by the wild dogs.
He continued: “The dogs seemed to be sizing them up in the hope that they might take out one of the cubs.”
Cheetah mother chases after one of the wild dogs
He said that in spite of the dogs’ threats, the cheetahs stood their ground, and they were impressed by the calmness of the mother. Even more so when one of the dogs tried to come towards the cheetah family, and the mother started to chase after it. She was Supermom after all!
Finally, the wild dogs moved away from the cheetahs and Barry explained that he and his son ‘breathed such a sigh of relief’.
“It didn’t last more than a couple of minutes, but during those moments, our hearts stood still. In the Kruger, anything can happen at any time,” he said. “These cheetahs were so inspiring. We tried to find them every day, and only had more sighting – way in a thicket. This memory of those cheetahs that day will live on in my memory forever.”
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