Rewilded cheetah

Although the cheetah belongs to the cat family, it differs significantly from the authentic cat family in many aspects such as morphological features and hunting behavior. It is tall and thin, has long and thin limbs, no patella in the knees, no claw sheaths, and does not go up trees, which is quite similar to the characteristics of canids.

If you want to evaluate the best hunter of land animals, it is the cheetah. It is the undisputed sprint champion of the animal kingdom and can chase its prey at speeds of up to 100 km/h. No herbivore in the world can escape once it has caught its eye. It can use feline ambush tactics when hunting, waiting in the shadows to wait for the prey to approach, and then unexpectedly pouncing on the prey, to quickly knock down the prey, bite the throat of the prey to suffocate the prey; can also play the strengths of the canine, found prey urgent, long-distance running, and the prey to start a race with life as a stake until the prey exhausted foaming at the mouth until the prey collapses to the ground and is ready to be slaughtered.

Cheetahs also have a little-known feature, living together in small groups of five or six, with the number of male leopards outnumbering the number of female leopards in the group, a ratio of about 3:1.

According to field surveys, cheetahs are mainly found in Africa, but also in India and Palestine in Asia. Unfortunately, with the population explosion in Asia, the number of cheetahs in Asia has decreased dramatically in the last three decades and is on the verge of extinction.

The geographical and climatic conditions of Xishuangbanna in Yunnan are similar to those of India. With the aim of protecting wildlife and maintaining ecological balance, UNESCO allocated a grant to Kunming Yuantong Mountain Zoo to set up a cheetah rewilding center to release qualified cheetahs after rewilding into the pristine forests of Xishuangbanna.

The so-called rewilding center is to find a suitable place to simulate the wild environment so that cheetahs originally living in zoo cages can gradually adapt to life in the wild. The rewilding center, so to speak, is equivalent to a school, relay station, and training base for wild animals from zoo residents.

People generally believe that the tigers, leopards, and wolves held in zoos, as long as they open the iron doors of the cages to let them out, immediately is the king of the mountains and forests and dominant predatory beasts. In fact, not, most zoo beasts are born in cages and grow up in vain with the shape of the beast, even if captured from the wild, in the zoo for a long time, will also be alienated and degenerate, behavior and psychological are far from the real wild beasts.

The Wuhan Zoo has done an experiment where two leopards living in the zoo since childhood were released into the Shennongjia Nature Reserve without any rewilding process, only a radio transmitter was tied around the leopard's neck for tracking and observation. The other leopard barely survived for more than half a month, but he was so hungry that he had no choice but to eat the carcass of a rotting animal and died of malignant dysentery.

Thus, the establishment of a rewilding center is a very necessary and wise move.

There is a piece of wasteland behind the Yuantong Mountain Zoo, overgrown with weeds and rocks, with a small stream running through the center, quite a bit of South Asian scenery, surrounded by a three-meter-high concrete wall, which became the cheetah rewilding center. Soon, the first batch of seven cheetahs, five males, and two females was selected for rewilding training.

Before, almost all people thought that rewilding cheetahs was easy and could be done without much effort. In the first place, they are beasts, and rewilding is literally restoring their nature, so what's so difficult about it? This is not the case.

Early that morning, the staff put the seven cheetahs into small metal cages and pulled them on a flatbed tricycle to the back of the park, where they were released through a lattice gate into the rewilding center. According to field research data, an average cheetah needs a territory of ten square kilometers to survive reliably, and the living space in the rewilding center is only one-seventieth of what they should have. But compared to the 200-square-meter cage where they live, the rewilding center is much wider, not to mention the fact that it is a relatively free space without barbed wire fences. I imagined that as soon as they stepped through the door of the rewilding center, their eyes would immediately light up and shine with joy, jumping around on the grass and enjoying the wide open space and free air. However, to my surprise, none of the seven cheetahs showed the excitement of a dragon returning to the sea and a tiger returning to the mountains, but on the contrary, they were all frightened and afraid to move, huddled together, full of doubts and wondering what to do.

Such fear and wariness of the unfamiliar environment are completely inconsistent with the character of cheetahs. The wild cheetah, because there are very few natural enemies that can hurt it in the jungle, is brave and adventurous, especially when several cheetahs are in a group, their courage is multiplied, and after hunting in one place for a while, they will expand their territory and move to new places to find more prey. In the hunting process, no matter where the prey is fleeing to, the cheetahs are eager to give up the chase, never because the prey has fled into unfamiliar territory. For the beast, the unfamiliar environment is at best mildly unsettling, and soon this unrest will be replaced by a strong curiosity and urge to explore. Only weak herbivores in an unfamiliar environment will be afraid to tremble, with nothing to do. Strange, from another perspective, is new, exciting, and means a new destiny, new struggle, new creation, new development, and new pioneering.

We yelled at the cheetahs through the lattice iron gate, expecting to blast them away from the gate and whisk them into the wide meadows and rocky beaches. They are not timid sheep, why are they standing still?

Under our continuous bombardment, a cheetah with star-like spots on its face, nicknamed Ma Xiong, cautiously took about 30 steps forward and then stopped. A female cheetah with a particularly colorful black ring on her tail named Broken Tail swung her tail and trotted up, but just before she reached a position parallel to Mashung, it was as if there was a wall in front of her, and she came down with an emergency brake. The other cheetahs were also guilty of the same thing, they all came to a position parallel to the maharajah and turned back as if they had hit a wall. I looked through the iron gate, the cheetahs dare not cross a step, is the center of a flat lawn, there is no obstacle, no barrier, no boundary, there is no reason to stop ah!

"They're used to being in cages, and that's as far as they can usually go." Master Zhong, who is responsible for feeding this group of cheetahs, muttered in a low voice next to me.

As a professional who works with animals all day, Master Zhong said the crux of the problem. I visually measured the place where the cheetahs were stagnant, about thirty meters from the iron door, and the cage where they originally lived, thirty meters long and seven meters wide. The seven cheetahs were all born and raised in the rectangular cage, and their maximum space in the cage was 30 meters from the east end of the cage to the west end of the cage, beyond which they would hit the wire. I guess there may have been one or two cheetahs who did not want to be restrained, eager to break through the fence to the wide world, but every time they were hit by the hard wire fence, they had to be scolded by the keeper in a rude voice. After countless failures, they naturally concluded that the fence was unbreakable and all efforts to run outside the fence were futile. Over time, they formed a conditioned reflex, as long as the forward run out of thirty meters, will hit the wall like an immediate stop.

For the souls in long-term captivity, the visible barbed wire is removed, but the invisible barbed wire still stands.

The sun came out, illuminating the mountains, the water, the grass, and the rocky beach. The seven cheetahs' mottled fur shone magnificently in the sunlight. The spring breeze swirled, the grass leaves rustled, a pair of turtledoves swept their wings from the grass and a flowered snake squeaked and swam towards the clear stream. The seven cheetahs not only did not appreciate the elegance of nature and its charm but hid in fear as if danger was approaching. They hated the bright sunlight and didn't like their bodies being lit up by the sun, and they were tumbling over each other, trying to hide behind other cheetahs. The scene was like a group of rats living in the darkness of the earth suddenly exposed to the light of day.

After a while of chaos, the searching eyes of the cheetah named Ma Xiong swept around and suddenly moved towards the left side of the lattice iron gate. There is a narrow gap between the concrete fence and a rock, a hidden dead end where the sun does not shine, dark and cramped. The seven cheetahs burrowed into the alcove, crowding it to the hilt and filling it to the brim. Strangely enough, they seem to be satisfied that they have finally found a safe place to go, their nervousness calmed down, and they cowered together peacefully and stuck out their tongues to decorate each other's fur.

They are used to living in a small space, living for a long time in a steel cage having developed a closed mentality, and always feeling that only the surrounding walled-off crowded living space is safe. Once the territory is expanded, the world is open, the danger will take advantage of the gap, the crisis will arise, and the sense of security is gone. This is a pathological sense of security caused by the abnormal mind.

The world is very big, and the big world is the big stage for life activities. When we enter the open world from the closed corner, we may encounter reefs and dangerous beaches, traps and fire pits, and there are always dirty and sordid places in the big world, always crises and various unsatisfactory places. However, the open world is more bright sunshine, is a vibrant competition, is the sea wide by the fish leap sky-high let the birds fly stretch and freedom.

A broad mind can enjoy a wide space, once the imprisoned obscene mind is in an open world, it is difficult to adapt at once. I have seen many times similar to this report: a prisoner who has been sitting in prison for decades after release, after crossing the prison gate, the face of the free world of flowers and green bewildered, has been completely unable to adapt to normal human life, fear, and doubt, strange isolation, under great pressure, the spirit is on the verge of collapse, as a last resort, he asked to go back to prison.

If the seven cheetahs could vote by a show of hands to choose freely, I believe, at this moment, they will raise their hands in favor of returning to the narrow cage.

It seems that the first thing is to eliminate the invisible barbed wire in their hearts, get rid of the mental fetters, create an open mind, and adapt to survive in the unrestrained wide world.

Of course, there is a way, that is, the domestication of animals usually used the food lure method. The difference is that in the past, the food lure method was often used to make the animals lose their wildness, polish off the edges of their character, and turn disobedient beasts into obedient domestic animals; but now the food lure method is used to help the seven cheetahs open the chains of their hearts, correct their distorted minds, reshape their alienated character, and create a generation of normal, healthy, fearless and energetic true cheetahs.

In a sense, it's forging new souls.

We don't feed them all day, hunger is the best teacher of life. The next morning, we arrive at the rewilding center with fresh meat. The cheetahs, with a keen sense of smell, smelled the blood on the meat from afar and scrambled out of the narrow alcove between the fence and the rock, pouncing on the lattice iron gate and barking at us. Master Zhong picked a piece of steak of the right size and teased the cheetahs through the lattice iron gate for a while before they kissed his mouth greedily, then raised his arm like a discus and threw a piece of steak out, which whirled in the air and crossed the lattice iron gate, flying 60 to 70 meters away under the eyes of seven pairs of leopards, and fell on the rocky beach in the wild center with a thud.

The bloody red steak stood out on the chalky white rocks, and was in the upwind, sending a sweet smell of blood with the wind. The seven cheetahs salivated and quickly ran towards the steak, but just ran out of 30 meters, they coincidentally all stopped.

There is no doubt that the invisible barbed wire fence blocked their way.

Master Zhong threw pieces of meat at the rocky beach one after another to increase the strength of the temptation. The cheetah named Ma Xiong is probably really hungry, standing in front of the invisible barbed wire fence of 30 meters, roared sadly, eyes closed, heart crossed, a generous attitude, head for the front. It did not have any obstacle to leaping out more than ten meters away. It does not seem to believe that it has such ability, stopped, face showing a surprised expression, looking back. Indeed, it has crossed the psychological barrier, leaving behind artificial constraints. It roared with surprise and leaped to the rocky beach, chewing on fresh steak.

The power of rate is boundless, and the other six cheetahs followed Ma Xiong's lead, all leaping onto the rocky beach to enjoy the delicious meal.

We walked along the fence of the rewilding center and threw some pieces of meat in every corner in all directions so that these cheetahs could open their eyes and get familiar with the new living environment in the process of foraging for food, and cultivate an enterprising mind that is brave to explore and good at pioneering.

Once the cage of the heart is opened, life is liberated in the true sense.

Soon, the seven cheetahs adapted to living in a wide natural environment, they did not care to enter the narrow fence between the wall and the rock, and they were no longer afraid of the sound of wind and rain and the rustling of grass and leaves. They gallop across the wide meadows and rocky beaches, jump along the streams, splash a piece of crystal water, and when they are tired of playing, they close their eyes and lie lazily in the sun, enjoying the warmth and beauty of nature.

We deserve to live in a world that is open and full of vitality and energy.