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Zandri White, a guide at AndBeyond Phinda Private Game Reserve, caught this sad sighting and sent it through to us. She said she was “returning home along the main road that runs through the reserve” when she saw movement and pulled over to investigate.
Off the side of the road was a cheetah and her cub, and they were about to have an evening meal. As Zandri watched, the mother cheetah “disappeared in some long grass on the opposite side of the road and seconds later reappeared” with the duiker in her mouth.
Unsuccessful Hiding Place
Duikers lack any defensive tools aside from stealth and speed. They resist predators through kicking, like this one tries, but their best bet for survival is to avoid detection in the first place.
Due to their relatively small size, they often attempt to hide from predators in long grass. If this one knew the cheetah was there, then it was definitely trying its hardest not to be noticed.
Unfortunately, something tipped this cheetah off to its location, and its speed meant that it likely caught the duiker before it had much of a chance to try and escape.
Patient Cheetah
Despite securing a good hold on the duiker that made it difficult for it to struggle effectively, this cheetah didn’t have an easy time of it, struggling to keep that hold on the wet surface of the road.
A cheetah lacks the weight and strength of larger cats like leopards and lions, and although they make up for it with their speed, that doesn’t help them keep a hold of their prey.
Zandri said that this kind of drawn out fight is rare when cheetahs hunt, as when they “catch something slightly larger like an impala or a nyala, they don’t make too much noise and the animal is killed relatively quickly.” That makes this a rare sighting, as well as a sad one.
A Longer Struggle Than Expected
There was a moment during Zandri’s sighting that the fate of the duiker did not seem like quite so foregone a conclusion as it did at the beginning.
Zandri told Latest Sightings that there “was a moment where the duiker nearly slipped out of her grasp indicating how hard it was really kicking her.”
The little duiker was clearly desperate to survive, and it wasn’t going to go down without a fight. Duikers tend not to travel in herd, but spend their time alone or in pairs, so this one may have been alerting its mate to the threat, or calling for its help.
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Either way, those cries went unanswered, and Zandri began to grow worried that “nearby predators might hear the cries of the Duiker and potentially steal her food from her.”
Successful At The End
Although Zandri grew anxious for the cheetah and her meal, she said that “she and her cub were seen again later that afternoon with full bellies.”
While it’s sad listening to an animal cry during its last moments of life, it can be relieving to know that this cheetah managed to feed herself and her cub. Cheetah’s are struggling in the wild, with less than seven thousand remaining.
Despite the emotional nature of sightings like these they can be rare, so it’s always worth watching them in full to appreciate the struggle that characterizes life in the wild.