BEN MACLENNAN, Cape Town | Thursday
LIKE a streak of spotted lighting, Cape Town cheetah Nyana Spier on Wednesday powered his way down a 100 metre course to equal his own world speed record of 6,34 seconds.
The four-year-old cat, whose handlers say has run even faster in training sessions, set the time chasing a lure before hundreds of spectators at a golf driving range in Cape Town.
”I think it was a pretty good run. In the circumstances it was a pretty good run,” said Annie Beckhelling, a director of Cheetah Outreach, an organisation working to publicise the plight of the endangered creatures.
Beckhelling said Nyana had hesitated, and ”probably getting his bearings” at the start, only reached top speed half-way down the track.
”He’s capable of breaking the record. We broke it a couple of times on training days,” she said.
She said Nyana had been clocked as fast as 5,9 seconds.
Nyana, who set the record at the same venue last year, was born and bread at the outreach facility at Spier Wine Estate outside Cape Town.
Beckhelling said: ”All the cheetahs at our facility are captive-born and hand-raised. They are basically ambassadors for the species.
”Cheetahs are threatened with extinction . They are the oldest cat in the world, and the most threatened big cat in Africa today. The population has been halving every ten years.”
Events such as Nyana’s world record attempt and the Cheetah Challenge road race for humans that accompanied it were an attempt to raise public awareness.
”One of the things we very much believe in is giving the children of South Africa a sense of pride and ownership in their wildlife heritage,” said Beckhelling. – Sapa