We spent two full days with a Cheetah mother and her cub during our August 2007 expedition to the Masai Mara. We spent the first day watching them sleep and play together. The second day we watched the mother kill three young Thommies.
Unfortunately the cub suffered from either congenital glaucoma or cataracts in both eyes which gave both eyes a deep opaque blue colour and a vacant stare. Cheetahs and other wild cats often develop cataracts following injury, often a thorn but this cub was only weeks old and of course both eyes were afected. It was presumably congenital. Surgery is possible, and indeed has been perfomed on Lions in other parks. We were told that a vet had looked at our Cheetah but had judged it too young for treatment.
Shortly after our return to London, we heard from the park that Lions had killed the cub. Whether this was because the cub had poor vision is not known, but it cannot have helped. This was very sad news however it does demonstrate the balance of nature and the means of survival. We found the following from Richard Dawkins....
"Nature is not cruel, pitiless, indifferent. This is one of the hardest lessons for humans to learn. We cannot admit that things might be neither good nor evil, neither cruel nor kind, but simply callous -- indifferent to all suffering, lacking all purpose"
All the best,
Julie and Adam
In memorium ... in the Mara - 9 September 2007
