The VS crew were thoroughly disappointed by their failure to see any of the big cats while out game driving. So the opportunity was taken to visit a cat rehabilitation centre in KZN.

Here four species of big cats - cheetahs, caracals, wildcats and servals are being rescued, captive bred and if possible released back into the wild as part of a carefully scientific programme. Some of the animals can never be released, and this enables cheetah petting which is an occurrence of worldwide scarcity.

Here is a cheetah Acinonyx jubatus, taking it easy:

Amazingly he purrs just like a domestic tomcat, only he sounds more like a diesel engine. These are sadly sterile, a real problem with cheetahs predating human interference. Cheetahs have had a population bottleneck in the fairly recent past leading to a lack of genetic diversity and a big infertility problem. Careful outbreeding helps. These are the fastest animals on earth, recorded at an incredible 127km per hour - with about a four second acceleration!

 And this is an African wildcat Felis sylvestris lybica:

He is almost indistinguishable from a domestic pussycat, and indeed genetically they are almost identical. They face two problems in the modern world - habitat loss and crossbreeding with feral domestic cats which are increasingly everywhere. Maintaining a pure species is proving to be a real challenge.

A trip to the Isimangaliso National Park to see the turtles nesting produced no turtles, but a real live leopard Panthera pardus:

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