A new female cheetah has been released into Mountain Zebra National Park outside Cradock, introducing new genes into the park in the process.
The four-year-old female arrived in the Park from the Dinokeng Game Reserve in Gauteng in July and has been in a boma since.
The introduction of the cheetah is part of the Endangered Wildlife Trust's Cheetah Metapopulation Project which was established in 2011 to provide a co-ordinated approach for the management of about 300 cheetah in over 50 reserves across the country.
Project co-ordinator, Vincent van der Merwe, said a managed population is a set of geographically isolated populations of the same species that exchange individuals through human-controlled movement.
"Over the past eight years, Mountain Zebra National Park has been the biggest contributor to the country's metapopulation, making 24 of their cheetah available. During this time, park management has only requested two cheetah from the project in order to alleviate genetic concerns," said van der Merwe.
Mountain Zebra National Park manager, Megan Taplin, said the cheetah, which was released into the park on Wednesday, was also fitted with a tracking collar to monitor her movements and interactions with other animals.
"The new cheetah represents a valuable addition to our cheetah population in the Park, as she brings a new mix of genes which will improve genetic health," said Taplin.
Taplin said that the new female would not be contracepted in the hope that any cubs she might produce would be moved to other national parks and game reserves in the future to boost cheetah metapopulation numbers.
She said female cheetah have been allowed to breed in the past two years to ensure that any effect of predation by lions - which are known to kill cheetah to reduce competition for prey - is mitigated.
"This new female has been able to rear a litter of cubs successfully in the presence of other predators including lion in her previous home, so we hope that she will be able to do so once again in Mountain Zebra National Park," Taplin added.
