Kristiina (00:00)
Hi, and welcome to Hiss and Tell I am your host, Kristiina Wilson. And our guest today is the amazing Dr. Laurie Marker, zoologist and conservation scientist and founder and executive director of the Cheetah Conservation Fund. Welcome, Dr. Laurie. Thank you so much. Can you tell us a little bit about your background, about CCF, about how you got into cheetahs, all of the stuff?
Dr. Laurie Marker (00:14)
Thank you.
Kristiina (00:22)
I know a lot about CCF because I have been there. I was a working guest. I was a regular guest. But for those people who may not know, can you give us a little bit of background on yourself and the organization?
Dr. Laurie Marker (00:33)
Great, I can. Well, I'm based here in Namibia, Africa, and I'm the founder of the Cheetah Conservation Fund, which I set up in 1990. And that was at the time when Namibia had just gotten its independence. And so I've been here for a very long time and have watched an amazing process of Namibia.
and the development of the wildlife, but our program is all about cheetahs. So I started working with cheetahs back in the early 1970s in Oregon. I'm an American, and I ran a wildlife park called the Wildlife Safari in Oregon, where we were one of the few places in the world that had cheetahs, and I was fascinated with them, and I wanted to know everything I could know about them. And I set up...
then a very successful breeding program. And cheetahs also are an animal that don't breed well in captivity. And so in doing that, the more I found out about cheetahs, the more I wrote to people around the world and they'd say, well, when you find out something about cheetahs, let us know. They don't breed well, they have a short lifespan, and we're losing them in the wild.
Kristiina (01:25)
Right.
Dr. Laurie Marker (01:39)
So I ended up on my first part of research here in Africa in Namibia back in 1977. And that was research to find out if a captive -born cheetah could go back out into the wild and what steps would be involved. And so my life has had a very long process in cheetah conservation, biology, science, and reintroduction. So.
That's kind of how I started. in the middle of my time, I guess, after coming back from Namibia, which we can talk more about in the late 70s, and conducting the research that I was doing here, I found that farmers were killing cheetahs, I mean, eight to 900 a year. And I thought somebody should,
Kristiina (02:07)
Mm -hmm.
Sure.
Dr. Laurie Marker (02:27)
try to stop the killing of the Cheetahs. And the more people I asked and talked to, nobody ever actually stepped forward and said, what a good idea. We should save the Cheetah.
And so I actually moved from Oregon to the Smithsonian, where I was running a research project within the National Zoo and National Cancer Institute called NOAA Center, which was the new opportunities for animal health sciences. And we were putting together that of genetics, reproductive physiology, and wildlife veterinary care and wildlife management. And so together,
Kristiina (02:59)
Mm -hmm.
Dr. Laurie Marker (03:02)
In the early 1980s at the Wildlife Safari, we actually discovered that cheetahs lack genetic diversity. And that's where I really got involved in much of the research that we've then also been doing here in Namibia. So...
From my time at the National Zoo and NOAA Center, I set up the Cheetah Conservation Fund and at Independence of Namibia in 1990, I then sold all of my few belongings that wildlife biologists have and had enough money to move to Namibia and buy a Land Rover and start the Cheetah Conservation Fund.
Kristiina (03:43)
That's amazing. Can you tell us a little bit? You just touched on that cheetahs don't have a very long lifespan. What is their lifespan like? And why is that
Dr. Laurie Marker (03:52)
Well, back when I first started in the early 70s, and I, over those periods of time, have actually developed what's called the International Cheetah Stud Book, which is a registry of all the cheetahs that live in zoos around the world. So I'm gonna put this all kind of in perspective. There are, in the wild today, only about 7 ,000 cheetahs left. They're found in Africa, in about 20 countries, in 30...
Kristiina (03:58)
Mm -hmm.
Mm -hmm.
Dr. Laurie Marker (04:20)
three populations of which 20 of those populations are under 100 individuals. So we've got a lot of very small pocketed populations. And in captivity, there's only about 1800 cheetahs living around the world. And cheetahs, every year maybe there are 100 to 150 cubs born. They're an animal that historically is not bred well in captivity.
Back when I started in the early 70s, there were only a handful of cheetahs that were living in zoos. most all of them had come in from the wild. And then when the Endangered Species Act.
went into place and CITES, which is the Convention on International Trade, regulated the animals coming in. Wild animals were not allowed to come back into America and so zoos had to start working on collaboration. But back in those days, the cheetahs never bred and they had a very short lifetime and that really had to do with what we found out much now.
over all of our years of research was basically very stress -related. Cheetahs don't like to be in small areas. Our research has found out here that they cover areas of about 800 square miles. They've got...
interactions that are really important in their behaviors. And so when they were coming in from the wild, they were stressed very heavily. And really their lifespan at that point in time was maybe two years in captivity. So as we started learning much more about how to properly care for the cheetah, and I was at a wildlife park, so not a zoo, and our animals were in very large, large areas, similar to...
Kristiina (05:51)
Wow.
Right.
Dr. Laurie Marker (06:03)
Well, we've got much larger areas here in Namibia at the Cheetah Conservation Fund. But having large open areas, we started to get breeding going on and reducing the stress. And then over the years, we've learned a lot more about exercise and how important that is, reducing stress factors. And now, for instance, here in Namibia, our animals are living to 16 to 18 years of age.
Kristiina (06:05)
Right.
Dr. Laurie Marker (06:28)
In the zoos around the world, the captive lifespan is still maybe about 12 years of age, and in the wild, it's about 10 to 12 years of age. They have a very hard time in the wild because of a lot of factors that play a part of living in the wild. Dominancy for males and females raising their cubs, so a lot of infant mortality. So we've learned an awful lot about the overall health factors of cheetahs, and that's a lot of the work that we've done of having our
Kristiina (06:45)
Of course.
Dr. Laurie Marker (06:58)
hands on now here in Namibia, over 1 ,500 wild cheetahs that we've been able to get blood, tissues, look at their genetics. And from that, many of them have been collared and put back out into the wild. And we've been able to track them and find out how they're living. And that's been very, very exciting. And then much of that information has gone back into helping manage animals properly in captivity.
So we've grown the captive population and have managed it, even though they still don't breed all that well in captivity. We do know a lot more about those aspects of management. And the zoo populations are critical as backups, especially genetically, for understanding and keeping wild populations. It's a backup to a wild population. So we work with both areas, I think.
Kristiina (07:42)
Of course. Right. And I don't know, I may be totally remembering this incorrectly, but are you not allowed to breed the cheetahs at the sanctuary? Right. Okay.
Dr. Laurie Marker (07:53)
That's correct. Namibia has a policy of nonbreeding. Namibia is one of the few places in the world that actually has wildlife populations. And we like to keep our wildlife populations wild. And by having them, we have a sanctuary here. We have right now 24.
wild cheetahs that have come in as orphan cubs, their mothers have been killed, and we take care of them. But with that, the purpose is not to breed them in captivity. We do obviously keep very close monitoring of them. We utilize them. Males, for instance, we bank their sperm. Females were actually able to monitor their reproductive cycles and learn a lot about how cheetahs are living in a semi -natural environment.
environment, but they're here as educational ambassadors, basically.
Kristiina (08:46)
Can you talk a little bit because you touched on it briefly about how when you started CCF, the farmers were just kind of killing cheetahs. I know because they thought that they were predating on their farm animals, mainly goats, right? And do you want to talk a little bit about how you have worked on changing their minds, how people might know?
that it's not cheetahs. I remember there being some talk about, you know, how you can tell that an animal has not been killed by a cheetah, right? By the bite marks or how the animal was taken down. All of these things that went into you kind of doing all of this work in educating the farmers.
Dr. Laurie Marker (09:29)
Yeah, it's been a very, very important process because I think another important part of this that most people don't realize when we talk about the work that we do is when I moved over here, we were the first predator project that actually was working outside of a protected area.
Kristiina (09:48)
Mm -hmm.
Dr. Laurie Marker (09:49)
Up until that point in time, people were working within protected areas and so they could watch the behavior of the animals. However, cheetahs, 80 % of them, are living outside of protected areas. Here in Namibia, over 90 % of the cheetahs are outside of protected areas on livestock farmlands.
The main reason why they're living outside of protected areas is most of the areas are not large enough. And in those protected areas, they are protecting the lions and hyenas, the leopards that are in there. And those larger predators push the cheetah out. The cheetah is not a dominant predator. It is a small lithe animal. It doesn't have big, powerful claws or big teeth. All they have is speed. And so although they are the best hunter on the African savanna,
there's a lot of competition that pushes them out. The other predators steal their food, kill their young, and so the cheetahs will actually move out. And that's why they're living on lands where there are people and livestock. And throughout Africa...
There's livestock and people everywhere. Here in Namibia, we have a lot of wildlife on our farmlands as well, or ranch lands, as you would call them. And so the cheetah is living outside of the protected areas on these lands. However, as all of our ancestors, going back thousands and thousands of years, we as humans hate predators.
Kristiina (10:53)
Mm -hmm.
Dr. Laurie Marker (11:13)
We are afraid of them, and then with our livestock, we believe they are livestock -wanting, killing animals, of which I have to say they really would rather have their natural prey, and therefore...
looking at how people manage their livestock has been a very big part of the work that we've done. And so I've surveyed most of the farmers in the country and have learned much from the farming community about how they interact with wildlife and then how indeed their wildlife and predators are interacting with their livestock. Now cheetahs could catch calves, cattle calves.
Kristiina (11:32)
Mm -hmm.
Mm -hmm.
Dr. Laurie Marker (11:53)
under six months of age. The majority, 90 percent of that, might be under one month of age.
and then small stock goats and sheep. And so therefore, learning about how they're managing those animals has taught us a lot about how we teach. Now, I grew up as a farmer myself. And so I don't just love cheetahs and predators and wildlife. I am a farmer myself. So we here in Namibia at the Cheetah Conservation Fund actually have a model farm. So we raise our goats, our cattle, but we also have what's called livestock guarding dogs.
Kristiina (12:11)
Mm -hmm.
Dr. Laurie Marker (12:27)
And.
we manage our livestock in such a way that we don't have livestock losses and this allows us to work with the farming communities to teach them better livestock management and the role that farmers play in livestock losses. And that could be around having calving seasons and properly caring for your animals, vaccinations that are appropriate, trimming of their hooves. And then the livestock guarding dogs are a very large breed of, it's a Turkish breed of dog, actually.
Kristiina (12:49)
Mm -hmm.
Dr. Laurie Marker (12:58)
and they grow up with the livestock and protect the livestock, barking loudly, and then mark territories. And that then allows cheetahs to know where the livestock is and where they're not allowed to be. And through avoidance, the predators and the cheetahs stay away from people's livestock. But the farmers didn't know a lot of this. They...
Kristiina (12:58)
Right.
Mm -hmm.
Dr. Laurie Marker (13:21)
You would think they would, and this is a global issue, is that farmers with their livestock forget they actually play a role in managing their livestock. They've got land, they maybe put a fence around it. Here are fences. Wildlife can go through it and over it. And that's what you want, is you want to have the wildlife to be a part of the system.
Kristiina (13:37)
Sure.
Dr. Laurie Marker (13:43)
And if you are protecting your livestock, and that's why like the calving season is so important, and protecting those young calves for a short period of time, that then...
the predator's not gonna come in and eat all your livestock. And that was what was being done when I first got here. And over these years of working together with the farming community and using what we've learned here, management of predators and livestock, I think on a global scale has had an awakening because nobody was looking at that. And we were all just saying.
Kristiina (14:16)
Right.
Dr. Laurie Marker (14:18)
The predator's a problem. And actually through enough research and understanding, it's kind of people are a problem, our management is a problem, and together we can live together. That's one of our mottos.
Kristiina (14:30)
Yeah. just to pepper this with my own experience because who cares about my experience, but I'm just going to put it in there that I really enjoyed working with the working dogs and that the working farm at CCF, all of the goats and the working dogs were so great, even though we were not supposed to really interact with them. You know, when you'd go in to like deal with the goats, they would just run up to you and several times knock me over because they are so large.
They're so large and so excited. And there are many times I just walk in and then be like, why am I looking at the sky? Like, it would just like knock me over. But it really is an amazing program that you've started there. And that I love to see that it has enacted such great change
Dr. Laurie Marker (15:13)
Yeah, and so we've actually, we started the program 30 years ago, and it's hard to believe that we're 30 years have gone. But we breed and place them with the farmers. They grow up bonding with the livestock when they're young. And we place nearly 800 dogs in the 30 -year period of time. And we see between an 80 to 100 % reduction of livestock loss for the farmers that have the dogs. And the Livestock Guarding Dog Program,
Kristiina (15:17)
Mm -hmm.
Mm -hmm.
Dr. Laurie Marker (15:42)
because of the years that we've now put into
That's, I think, one of the things that we've learned most is that it's all about working with people.
And Africa is a continent that is full of humans and their livestock. cheetahs are living very pastoral, very arid land, very, very poor people. And so with that, any livestock loss is going to really affect their economics. And so of course they're gonna wanna kill them. And that's what we wanna stop is we wanna try to make sure that they're not losing their livestock,
Kristiina (16:13)
Right.
Dr. Laurie Marker (16:19)
livestock's healthy. And with that, they can make more money from less animals, leaving more grass for wildlife, and then if there's more wildlife, then there's more food for cheetahs
Kristiina (16:29)
So let's get into kind of talking about cheetahs specifically. Can you talk a little bit about how cheetahs are the fastest land animals and what are the physiological adaptations that they
Dr. Laurie Marker (16:40)
Well, cheetahs are the fastest land animal. And they can go up to speeds of 70 miles an hour, or 110 k's. But they're sprinters. So they can only go so fast for a short distance. And from that, there's a lot of adaptations that make them be able to go so fast.
Kristiina (17:01)
Mm -hmm.
Dr. Laurie Marker (17:01)
One is the fact that they're the only cat that has semi -non -retractable claws. And their claws are much more like a dog's claw, and their claws are used like cleats for traction and running. And also the pads, the bottom pad of their foot isn't soft like your domestic cat's pad is. They're actually hard, almost like a tire tread. And so if you see a track of a cheetah, you'll see.
and then you'll see what's a typical, what I would call a tire tread. And that helps them grip and stop fast also when they're going 70 miles an hour. They have, they're a very lightweight animal. A full adult cheetah could be up to, here in Namibia, maybe 100 pounds. And females are less, maybe 80, 70 to 80 pounds.
With that, they've got very long legs and they have a very lightweight body and an aerodynamic head. Their backbone is very flexible. They have shoulder and hip girdles that are not, their hip girdles aren't attached, which allows them to have a very...
extensive stretch. And so when they run, there's two points in their stride where no feet are touching the ground. They're actually flying through the air. When they are stretched out and doubled up, and then the rest of the time when they're running that speed, only one foot is touching the ground in between the two strides when they're flying. And their tail is used as a rudder for balance so that they don't roll over and spin out at 70 miles an hour.
Kristiina (18:21)
Mm -hmm.
Dr. Laurie Marker (18:29)
And then all their body parts in internal organs are actually adapted for the speed. So they've got small teeth because if they had long teeth, there'd be more roots that went up in their nostrils. And when they're going 70 miles an hour and when they've stopped running, they have to breathe very fast to catch their breath. That's a very common problem.
Kristiina (18:47)
Right.
Dr. Laurie Marker (18:50)
That's all evolved for them to be able to run so fast. And enlarged heart and blood vessels, lungs, just so that they can go those speeds. So they're pretty amazing animals and well adapted.
Kristiina (19:03)
maybe you want to talk a little bit about your setup at CCF that you have to run the cheetahs every day to get in that exercise that you mentioned was so important. I'm sure for their behavior and physiology and health and just tell everybody a little bit about how you exercise the cheetahs.
Dr. Laurie Marker (19:20)
Great. Well, so all of the cats that we have around that you saw, they're all orphaned animals that have been hand raised. And with that, we have to give them a lot of special care. They're in very large, large enclosures here, like several acres in their enclosures that they're living in. And with that, though, they don't just get up and run, like cubs do. But we actually.
Kristiina (19:28)
Mm -hmm.
Dr. Laurie Marker (19:46)
exercise. I mean, the exercise is extremely important to reduce stress factors and to keep them healthy, to keep their blood pumping right. They're a species that needs to run. And we learned about this over all the years of research and realized, you know, how important that is. So we actually run in a different ways. We use a mechanical lure with some of our cats and like you would see it, like greyhound races. I think that's the best way I could explain it. People might not know what that is, but it is a
pulley system on a like a starter motor and you
have it run, and it goes about 45 miles an hour, which would be less than the speed that they can run. But it gives them the way you play with them, like cat and mouse. It allows them to be able to catch fast speed and slow down. And it really gives them very good exercise. They can only run full speed for a few minutes at a time. So it's not like they need lots and lots of running.
Kristiina (20:43)
Right.
Dr. Laurie Marker (20:45)
and then our other cheetahs that are not right here close to the center that are out in other large areas, they run behind our food truck. And there you can get up even a little bit higher speed. And so they will chase the truck and get their exercise that way. Exercise is extremely important. And that's why our cheetahs are the epitome of health, basically, and have been the baseline for studies that we've conducted and worked on.
Kristiina (20:53)
Mm -hmm.
Dr. Laurie Marker (21:12)
with zoos around the world to try to help keep their animals healthy so they have a longer lifetime.
Kristiina (21:15)
Right.
That's great. And I do have fond memories of being in that food truck and just throwing out giant bits of meat and the cheetahs chasing the truck. And it was really amazing. I think that was the first day we got there and they were just like, yep, get in the truck, take this giant piece of meat. We're going to go throw it, throw it at some cheetahs and they're going to run behind the truck. And it was amazing. So for people listening or watching, you may really want to think about.
booking your trip to Namibia and going to stay at CCF so you can throw meat out of a truck and watch cheetahs run behind it and then go watch them run on their run at the lore because it really is amazing to see them go at such crazy speeds. What are the primary animals that they hunt out in the wild that they use this speed for? Like how do they use their?
biological makeup to hunt.
Dr. Laurie Marker (22:09)
Great, well they do, they hunt small antelopes. So antelope that might weigh up to maybe 70 pounds. Here in Namibia, coalition males that live together could hunt larger antelopes like kudu. But usually it's smaller antelope like springbok, steambok, diker.
Kristiina (22:12)
Mm -hmm.
Mm -hmm.
Dr. Laurie Marker (22:30)
the young of kudu, the young of oryx and heartabeast, and Thompson's gazelles, Grant's gazelles, if you're in East Africa. So it's smaller to medium size antelope. And these are very fast animals as well, but the way that they usually do hunt is they've got very good eyesight. And so they might go up into what's called a marking tree, which has a sloped trunk. So they can't climb in because they don't have sharp claws, but they can jump in. And if they're up in a tree,
Kristiina (22:54)
Mm -hmm.
Dr. Laurie Marker (22:59)
Hey.
sloped tree, they can have very great view. They might also go onto a termite mound to be able to see where they are or anything elevated. And so they're scanning the horizon for where the game is because they also have excellent eyesight. And then when they find what they might want to go after, they start a stalk. They'll get in as close as they can and then stalk their prey. And then from that, we'll go into high -altitude
Kristiina (23:20)
Mm -hmm.
Dr. Laurie Marker (23:28)
high -speed chase and then they trip their prey with the one paw while they're running with no feet off the ground or one foot touching the ground. They trip their prey and then they go into what's called a throat bite and they strangle up their prey and then they go into a strangulation process for about 15 minutes until their prey is dead while they're breathing out because they've also just exerted themselves to a point where they have to be able to breathe out before they can actually eat and then they will
that's the prey that they will hunt and how they go about hunting. So it's amazing to watch a cheetah hunt. And again, they are the best hunters on the savanna, but because they aren't strong and aggressive, they often lose their kills to a lot of other predators. And so that's one of the big problems for them. But we always say, as a top predator, they then do feed the rest of the veld, which makes them very good.
Kristiina (24:01)
Mm -hmm.
Right.
Dr. Laurie Marker (24:26)
for the whole ecosystem because they're feeding the jackals and the birds of prey and all the other small carnivores and insects and birds. And so top predators are critical to the biodiversity. And when you do have a top predator, you have much higher biodiversity within your ecosystem, which makes the land healthier.
Kristiina (24:38)
Mm -hmm.
Absolutely. Can you talk a little bit about sort of tying into that how they navigate their wild environment and what cognitive abilities they have that help in their survival that may be kind of differentiated from the other predators that are out there?
Dr. Laurie Marker (25:01)
Well, cheetahs are quite interesting. They have these very large home ranges. And their home ranges are one of the largest ranges of any mammal species on Earth. So even though we think of elephants as having huge ranges, cheetah's ranges are even larger. And how they get around along those lines, they're very interesting in their behavior, because it is what's called a mates. That's fine. I'd love it. So.
Kristiina (25:25)
I'm so sorry. I know exactly. She'll never hiss, she just screams.
Dr. Laurie Marker (25:30)
Your cat hisses and I tell. We can do it together as a team.
That's great. No, but so as cheetahs are navigating their area, and so it's a matriarchal area, society. Females have much larger ranges than do males. So a female will cover multiple males' home ranges. And with that, she'd be first with her mom and her mom and her brothers as they're growing up.
And so they learn about these ranges and they go into what are these called these marking trees. We call them play trees. But they actually go to these trees that they can climb into and they mark territory through urine and feces. And these are more used by males where they're territorial marking areas, but they also are a communication tree. So these scent factors are really important. Dominant males,
Kristiina (26:05)
Mm -hmm.
Dr. Laurie Marker (26:26)
And subordinate males might come in and smell a dominant male there and know they have to go away. Females will come in and go, oh, well, I like the smell of this male. And I.
Kristiina (26:35)
Mm -hmm.
Dr. Laurie Marker (26:36)
They have mate choice, so the female will pick the male that she will breed with. But then as she's raising her cubs up, she'll cover multiple males' areas, giving the cubs an idea of what the range looks like. And as the cubs are at about 18 months to two years of age, they split off from their mother. Usually dominant males will come in and breed the mother, push the cubs off. The cubs will stick together for another few months.
Kristiina (27:03)
Mm -hmm.
Dr. Laurie Marker (27:04)
months until the female cubs come into heat pushing then the young...
subordinate males away, they become floaters, and the young males will stick together their whole lives in coalitions. And then the female cubs stay within their mother's range. And so as I say, it's very matriarchal. And so the mother has actually shown them what these huge ranges look like and who's living out there. And so that's sort of how they get around, by learning where they are, sniffing and smelling. She teaches them where the water is. They'll learn at the
Kristiina (27:34)
Mm -hmm.
Dr. Laurie Marker (27:39)
at that point about where farmers are, where the livestock is, and where the prey is. And so they're pretty amazing at this. And we've learned so much about this by having satellite collars on the animals. Back in the old days, we used radio collars. We tracked them on the ground or from an airplane. These days, with satellite collars, we can pull the data down into our computer and know where they
Kristiina (27:54)
Mm -hmm.
Dr. Laurie Marker (28:03)
And then, you know, we also then track them using our scat detection dogs. I think you met those when you were here. And we've got dogs that sniff for cheetah scat. We call it black gold. And you can tell an awful lot if you find the scat, but it's like a needle in a haystack. And so the dogs which are specially trained to pick up the scent,
Kristiina (28:09)
Yes, I did.
Mm -hmm.
Right.
Dr. Laurie Marker (28:31)
of cheetah scat and then we can collect it and we can then.
Kristiina (28:34)
Mm -hmm.
Dr. Laurie Marker (28:35)
look at what the cheetahs have eaten by analyzing the hair that's within the scat. And then we can also take it to our genetics lab, and we do have a full -scale genetics lab here at our center in Namibia, and actually extract the DNA and understand much more about the genetic makeup of the population or the individuals or the relatedness of these animals within these different ranges.
Kristiina (29:02)
Um, can you talk a little bit about.
uh, cheetahs and their stress dynamic. I think they tend to be viewed a little bit as, as more shy or they are more shy than other cats. Um, and often, at least in zoos here in America, they're given sort of a companion animal to hang out with because they get stressed. can you, so just, can you tell us a little bit about stress, in cheetahs?
Dr. Laurie Marker (29:24)
Well, I have to say those companion animals, though, are animals that have been hand raised and are used for educational purposes. So they'd be ambassadors. And I actually learned this back in the 70s when I was first raising some orphaned cheetahs that I had a domestic dog and the two of them played together and it reduced any...
Kristiina (29:32)
Yes.
Mm -hmm.
Dr. Laurie Marker (29:51)
stresses, I mean basically because they had each other to play with and the dog showed that animal that was hand raised proper you know behaviors this is what we do you know there's a sound oh you don't have to be afraid and the cheetah grew up watching the dog going well my mom dog isn't jumping I don't have to worry either so that's really what that reduction of stress is. Many of these stressors if the animal's running really fast a lot of those stressors
Kristiina (29:53)
Yeah.
Right.
Dr. Laurie Marker (30:21)
the oppressors basically come out because they disappear. That's why we do exercise as humans. But when they're in captivity and they can't do that, that becomes one of the big problems. And what it...
Kristiina (30:25)
Disappear. Yeah. Yeah. Short. Yeah.
Dr. Laurie Marker (30:35)
has, and we've gotten through much of this through a lot of the research that we've worked together with the zoos and looking at what our wild cheetahs look like and what our cheetahs that have come in here as orphans in a very non -stressed place, because you've been here, it's very relaxed, and they're in very large areas, that...
Kristiina (30:51)
Mm -hmm.
Dr. Laurie Marker (30:56)
that we had to then mimic those things, I think, back into the zoos. But they get what's called gastritis, which is similar to what humans get for ulcers. And it's a helicobacter. It's very similar to what humans would get. And we've seen that through most of the populations in captivity and through management.
Kristiina (31:05)
Mm -hmm.
Dr. Laurie Marker (31:16)
Many of those now have gone away, and so we've got a lot healthier animals, yay, in captivity, and we're very proud of our collaborators around the zoos in the world to manage their animals to that extent, understanding that it was all about learning so much about them. But the other thing is is when they are stressed, you, cheetahs get a lot of other diseases, things like herpes virus, calicis. We've got aspects of...
Kristiina (31:21)
That's good. Yeah.
Mm -hmm.
Dr. Laurie Marker (31:43)
coronavirus that can manifest into what's called feline infectious peritonitis.
Kristiina (31:48)
I just did an episode yesterday on FIP with my vet friend. I had no idea that FIP could infect cheetahs as well.
Dr. Laurie Marker (31:57)
It is, and the problem with cheetahs is they lack genetic diversity, which I earlier touched on. But the cheetah is an animal that went through a historic small population that would be called like a bottleneck, where the numbers became very small and then.
Kristiina (32:02)
Yes.
Right.
Dr. Laurie Marker (32:15)
inbred and came back. And so all of the cheetahs that we know today all look very much exactly the same, very few genes. And that has given them a reduced immune system, basically. coronavirus is horrible. We've seen what it's done with humans over COVID. But cheetahs have, we learned about this back in the early 80s, and have been managing.
Kristiina (32:22)
Mm -hmm.
Yes.
Dr. Laurie Marker (32:38)
coronavirus and cheetahs for a long time, but it is when stress is hit, it will manifest into FIP, feel -uninfectious peritonitis. And I want to talk also with you about our program that we have in Somaliland, which is cubs that have come in from the illegal wildlife pet trade. These are confiscated cubs. We have 98 of them sitting in captivity now in Somaliland, where we've
Kristiina (32:48)
Mm -hmm.
Yes.
Mm -hmm.
Dr. Laurie Marker (33:07)
We've had to build a similar setup as we have here in Namibia. We only have 24 cheetahs here. We have 98 there. And under such, they come in malnourished. Out of those nearly 100 we have, probably another 50 or more have come in basically dead to us from malnutrition, from the illegal trade. And...
Kristiina (33:16)
Right.
Oh my gosh.
Ugh.
Dr. Laurie Marker (33:34)
And then they end up with herpes, Calici but also FIP. And a lovely part about this, that there is now a cure, which is called Cheetah 44. And we've now used it on cheetahs, and we have been able to save seven of our cheetahs, and we're just ecstatic.
Kristiina (33:38)
Right.
Yes. GS, yep. Mm -hmm.
Amazing.
Dr. Laurie Marker (33:56)
by this and again it's very very important research that we will continue on but just to see them go from almost dead to a lot of course you know you have to keep them on the treatment for three months.
Kristiina (34:07)
Mm -hmm.
Yes, and it's expensive and is it legal to give in Namibia? Can vets prescribe it? In America, it's a huge problem because it's not approved. Great, okay.
Dr. Laurie Marker (34:17)
This is in Somaliland. This is in Somaliland. We have no, we don't have corona issues here and we don't have FIP. Knock on wood. But that's because we still have very vast areas. We don't have a huge human population. The cheetahs are not overlapping with.
Kristiina (34:26)
Right. Great. Yeah.
Dr. Laurie Marker (34:37)
you know, people and their livestock and their domestic animals. The illegal wildlife pet trade, as these animals are caught from the wild, they're going into people's villages. They have no vet care there. They've got feral domestic animals. We've also had canine distemper problems with the cheetahs, so it's crossed over. And it's because they're in horrible conditions with sickly domestic animals because the people, they're not.
Kristiina (34:55)
Ugh, yeah.
Dr. Laurie Marker (35:04)
they don't care about the animals. We're dealing with some of the, we're in the third poorest country in the entire world in somali land. So it has been a,
Kristiina (35:05)
Of course. Yeah.
Dr. Laurie Marker (35:16)
horrible experience there that we've been working on for five years. And we've been able to save most of the animals and we've got a big vet clinic up there. We've got vets, you know, here we've got, I mean, our staff of Cheetah Conservation Fund in the two facilities, we must have eight vets. You know, some are geneticists, others specialize in, you know, the illegal trade. You've met many of them when you were here. But we've got,
Kristiina (35:38)
Mm -hmm.
Yes.
Dr. Laurie Marker (35:45)
A lot of veterinarians that work very, very hard at keeping our animals and our populations healthy. And I take my hat off to the veterinary
Kristiina (35:55)
So I want I want to kind of then talk a little bit more about all of the work with the illegal wildlife trade. What's going on with that? Where? What is the demand for cheetah cubs? What?
Dr. Laurie Marker (35:58)
Hey.
Kristiina (36:08)
Why do people want cheetah cubs? Who's doing this? Where are they getting the cheetah cubs? What is the trafficking?
Dr. Laurie Marker (36:13)
Well, we first got involved in this around 2005. By 2000, and that was in Ethiopia. By 2011, we started being, you know, learning much more about it and being called in to rescue programs. And by 2017, we were in Somaliland with boots on the ground for the number of cats that were coming through. These cubs are being stolen from the wild, primarily from Ethiopia, Somaliland,
Kristiina (36:19)
Mm -hmm.
Mm -hmm.
Dr. Laurie Marker (36:41)
and what we're finding is the herders find where they are, chase the mother's away because they're not aggressive animals, steal the cubs, and then the market is to the Middle East. And it is for the pet trade because cheetahs are an easily tamed animal, and they purr, and they are beautiful, and they're easily smuggled. So Somaliland is right, it's not Somalia.
It's a breakaway from Somalia, which is not even a recognized country, but it's a democratic country and trying to get recognition. So if anybody knows about it, please tell your congressman to support Somaliland. Sidebar, but out of that, they are the closest place into Yemen, and then Yemen into the Saudi Arabia and UAE is,
Kristiina (37:25)
Hehehe!
Dr. Laurie Marker (37:34)
the Gulf of Aden. And it's only, it takes you maybe two hours in a little boat and you're crossed over to the Yemen and, whew, you're again in a country that is not stable and there's a lot of things, not just cheetahs going back and forth, probably guns and humans, so.
Illegal wildlife trade is, there's a lot of things that are involved in it, but these little cheetah cubs, for every one that makes it into the trade, four or five of them die.
before they get there, and we have them die at our feet, sadly. For every one that makes it, its lifespan is usually only a year or two, because the people who get them don't know how to take care of them. Again, we've already talked about the special care they need, the exercise, the diet. all these special things that they need if they're in captivity. And they usually die of stress diseases.
Kristiina (38:19)
Right.
Mm -hmm.
Right.
Dr. Laurie Marker (38:30)
and they don't have the right vaccines. So all of those are the problem. And then they found, oh, it was a cute animal, a purrs. I think I should get another one. And since they breed in captivity.
Kristiina (38:39)
Ugh.
Dr. Laurie Marker (38:41)
they go back and pull them out of the wild. And so we now have big programs trying to stop them the supply. And that supply is working with the farming communities, their pastoralists, as I said, they're some of the poorest people in the world. Somaliland's the third poorest country. And...
Kristiina (38:58)
Mm -hmm.
Dr. Laurie Marker (39:01)
They've got their camels, their goats. They're just moving on the land. And we're trying to develop programs like we've developed here, Future Farmers of Africa programs, conservancy programs to teach them that natural resource management and wildlife can be a benefit to them in the future. Looking at livelihood development, aspects around.
Kristiina (39:23)
Mm -hmm.
Dr. Laurie Marker (39:26)
Maybe don't just eat all your goats. You could have some and make goat cheese. Or if you've got camels, camel milk and camel milk products, you know we make soap here. And we teach all these livelihood development type programs that we now are putting up into Somaliland So we're also doing surveys, social surveys to understand more about where the people are.
Kristiina (39:34)
Right.
Mm -hmm.
Dr. Laurie Marker (39:49)
are seeing, wildlife and cheetahs. Do they know about the illegal trade? And then from that, in Ethiopia, working with the government, with the law enforcement, we've changed the laws in the country. And the length of time that people are caught, how long they can be put in jail. So all of those are programs that we're actively involved in.
Kristiina (39:53)
Right.
Mm -hmm.
Dr. Laurie Marker (40:10)
that we've over 30 years developed these programs here that we can put into effect there. And with that, we've get many, many confiscations. So as I said, we've got 98 cheetahs at our center there.
you know, 20 a year maybe or 30 that have come in. And we have to take care of all of those animals. And so just in the last...
Kristiina (40:26)
Right.
Dr. Laurie Marker (40:34)
Year, we finally finished all of our compounds. We were in safe houses. We're now out in a very large facility. Our cats are all in very, very large open areas. It's reduced all their stresses. They're happy animals now. We're very, very, very happy. But our work still continues to stop the trade and then stop the demand. So we're also working with the demand countries.
Kristiina (40:41)
Mm -hmm.
Dr. Laurie Marker (40:58)
in the Middle East it is illegal and the governments have laws and we're trying to work closer with them so that they can really put the education out to their people that it is illegal and the people will get put in jail and there are big fines.
Kristiina (40:59)
Yes.
Dr. Laurie Marker (41:16)
And then from that, these animals up in Somaliland are also a very valuable small population and they will and can be also used for rehabilitation. And we can talk about rehabilitation as well because we also specialize in putting cheetahs back out in the wild.
Kristiina (41:25)
Mm -hmm.
Yes, let's absolutely talk about that. So go right ahead and talk about the rehabilitation program that you've established at CCF.
Dr. Laurie Marker (41:44)
Because you know a bit about it, we probably had some rescue animals here. And we have developed programs that if the cats come in at a certain age, not if they're on a bottle and they're not hand -fed and not like your domestic cat right there. But they are a wild animal. And if we can get them at a certain age here in Namibia,
Kristiina (41:46)
Yes. Mm hmm.
Dr. Laurie Marker (42:07)
We usually think at about four months of age, we have to then raise them up, but we don't raise them around where we are because they're wild, they're hissy, they don't like you. We can put them in an off, way far off area and you have to grow them up. And they grow up in very large areas, chasing trucks, smelling their environment.
Kristiina (42:13)
Mm -hmm.
Dr. Laurie Marker (42:26)
And when they're at about two to two and a half years of age, we can then start the rewilding process. And there we will work with some of our collaborators here in the country in Namibia that have large game reserves like Orindi. And we collar them, and then we are right there, and we can put them out. And it's an adaptive process, and they start learning how to hunt. In the beginning, you need to supplementally feed them. They're used to hearing the truck.
Kristiina (42:41)
Mm -hmm.
Dr. Laurie Marker (42:55)
that has fed them, but they're not used to, they don't want to be around you, but they know if they're not hunting. And usually it takes a couple weeks for them to investigate and learn and sniff and smell before they start, we call it trial and error, running after something, figuring if they can.
Kristiina (42:56)
Mm -hmm.
Dr. Laurie Marker (43:13)
try to catch it. And then once they do start catching it, cheetahs are quite smart. They got it figured out pretty quickly. They're then hunting on their own. But we monitor them very closely. Again, they're collared and track them and know exactly where they are. And we've had a huge success with our rehabilitation program. And some of these animals then have been reproducing second generations at this point in time. And some of those.
Kristiina (43:20)
Mm -hmm.
Dr. Laurie Marker (43:41)
cats that were rewilded and had cubs and their cubs had cubs that were in the wild, we've been able to actually put back into other regions of the world, of which last year we helped put cheetahs back into India where cheetahs went extinct back in the 50s. Now in the last 50 years, 60, 70 years, we have lost probably about 20, 20 countries where the cheetah has gone extinct.
Kristiina (44:00)
Mm -hmm.
Dr. Laurie Marker (44:10)
And many of these countries want cheetahs back. And by looking at where their prey is, how their human populations are, and where their community -based programs are, we're now starting to look that we can actually start looking at rewilding cheetahs back into some of these areas. And the program that we worked with in India, we have had now over almost two years, year and a half, going on two years, good success.
Kristiina (44:27)
Mm -hmm.
Mm -hmm.
Dr. Laurie Marker (44:38)
and of the cats that we've put out and 20 all in total, eight from Namibia and 12 from South Africa, we have had a few losses, unfortunately, within this learning process. But we've also had now four litters of cheetah cubs born out in India. So these processes are quite long term, very hard. We always say reintroduction is...
Kristiina (44:55)
Aww, that's lovely.
Dr. Laurie Marker (45:05)
is an important process. It's easier to keep the animals living free and in the wild, which is why all of our programs here in Namibia are scaled up into all these other range countries, which also go into education and international awareness, like talking with you and sharing with your cat lovers the fact that we can actually save the cheetah.
Kristiina (45:11)
Mm -hmm.
Mm -hmm.
Dr. Laurie Marker (45:31)
this amazing endangered species, Africa's most endangered big cat. Only 7 ,000 of them left. If indeed we have willpower, which Cheetah Conservation Fund does, but we need the funding. And that funding comes from people who care. And most of our funding, we're a nonprofit. We are a US nonprofit organization, also registered in Namibia as a nonprofit.
Kristiina (45:42)
Mm -hmm.
Dr. Laurie Marker (45:57)
registered in Somaliland as a non -profit and several other countries as non -profits And what we are trying to do is to raise the funds to try to help keep our programs going to save this species from extinction. And you know that, you've been here, we've got interns from around the world that work with us.
Kristiina (46:14)
Yes.
Dr. Laurie Marker (46:17)
working guests and volunteers that get involved with us. And we're also a tourism destination. We're an open public education center where people, we get about 15 ,000 people a year that come and learn about the work that we do. And we have a small little lodge where people can stay, our guest lodge, I think you were at Babson House, which was.
Kristiina (46:24)
Mm -hmm.
Yes, it's lovely. So lovely. I can't say enough good things about it. Really beautiful, beautiful place where you can look out and see the cheetahs from your windows. So highly recommend to any listeners who are interested in a trip to Africa to absolutely go and go and stop at CCF for several days. Maybe you want to talk just a little more about the education that you do for the public for people who come to the center to visit exactly what they might see if they come.
to visit.
Dr. Laurie Marker (47:08)
we call it conservation in action. And we like people to, as they come here, learn a lot about the basics of what conservation is, ecology. We do have our orphan cheetahs here, so they are introduced to them. But we have a museum that people are taken through.
Kristiina (47:10)
Yes.
Dr. Laurie Marker (47:26)
Then you can have a tour of our, not everybody, with a special tour, but of our veterinary clinic. You learn about our veterinary clinic and the amount of work that goes on there. You learn about our genetics lab and the work that's being done there and our scat dog program and that of our livestock guarding dog program and our care of our model farm
Kristiina (47:38)
Mm -hmm.
Dr. Laurie Marker (47:48)
So we actually have dairy goats here that we utilize the goat milk, which is pasteurized and we're registered dairy and we make our cheeses and there are...
Kristiina (47:49)
Mm -hmm.
Dr. Laurie Marker (48:01)
They're lovely cheeses. We make the best ice cream in the entire world. We make soap and fudge. And you can do a wildlife drive. We've got about 100 ,000 acres of land, which we call the cheetah's garden.
Kristiina (48:05)
It is really good.
Dr. Laurie Marker (48:16)
And so we've got huge herds of oryx, hardabies, giraffe, springbok, steambok. So just lovely place to actually go on a game drive as well.
Kristiina (48:28)
And to wrap up, a lot of our listeners had a few questions for you and a lot of them were about vocalizations. And so people really wanted to hear and know more about how cheetahs communicate with each other and what role vocalization plays in their interactions, if any.
Dr. Laurie Marker (48:44)
Well, vocalizations are important. We talked a lot in the beginning about scent. The vocalizations, though, they talk to each other. And cheetahs do have a different range of vocalizations than any of the other cats. They do purr. They're the only big cat that purrs, like your domestic cats. But they don't roar. They have a bubble and a hiss and a spat and a chirp.
Kristiina (48:48)
Yes. Mm -hmm.
Mm -hmm.
Dr. Laurie Marker (49:07)
And so they will chirp to each other with a very high pitch chirp. And that would be mothers calling their cubs, cubs, you know, mom, where are you? Chirp, chirp, chirp. Males will chirp for coalition males. And so I think that that's probably one of the most interesting of there. But it's a bubble chirp. So it's a brrr, ow.
Kristiina (49:16)
Mm -hmm.
Mm -hmm.
Ah, yes. Right.
Dr. Laurie Marker (49:31)
almost a stutter call, I think so. And it's heard because it's a high pitch. It can be heard pretty far away. And so it is a way of very strong communication. And when they are together, brothers will groom each other. All of mothers will groom their cubs. And they're purring pretty much this whole period of time. And.
Kristiina (49:46)
Mm -hmm.
Dr. Laurie Marker (49:53)
growling and hissing would be if maybe another predator would come around or their brothers may be stealing part of the food that they want. But really, their communication is just pretty amazing, I think.
Kristiina (50:06)
Yeah. So somebody asked, um, they want to know what the high pitched staccato meows are. And I think that might be what you just described. Correct. The chirp. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So that makes sense. So that sounds unique that most cats don't necessarily vocalize to communicate with each other. And that seems to be something unique to cheetahs again, that they're doing, I mean, unless they're fighting or unless it's a mother to cubs, generally cats are not.
Dr. Laurie Marker (50:14)
That would be the chirp. Yeah.
Kristiina (50:34)
super vocal and they're more using scent or they're more using body language. So that's, I think that the chirp is very interesting that they're doing that with each other, uh, cause it doesn't seem to be as common in cats.
Dr. Laurie Marker (50:46)
No, but lions, that's why you've got to roar with a lion. That's to say, hey guys, I'm here. And everybody else stay away. And mothers will shuffle, it's called, to their cubs. Tigers have a pfft, pfft, pfft sound that they use with their cubs as well. But yeah, I think this high -pitched chirp I think is pretty interesting.
Kristiina (50:50)
Mm -hmm.
Yes.
Right.
Yeah. And is there something that you wish everyone knew about cheetahs? That's just another follow -up question. Just one thing.
Dr. Laurie Marker (51:17)
Oh, yeah. I think what I'm saying is that if we don't do something, we're not going to have cheetahs around in the next few years. That's the most critical thing I think I can say. And they're the most beautiful animal on the face of the earth. Not that I'm partial, but they are. We call them speed and elegance. They're just gorgeous. We didn't talk about their tear marks. They've got them. I think that might be. That's how's that. A good thing to leave.
Kristiina (51:28)
Right.
No, but they really are.
Oh yes, yes, yes, let's talk about that. Yes. Yes. Yes.
Dr. Laurie Marker (51:44)
that they, you can tell a cheetah from any of the other spotted cats because they've got these black marks that run down there from the corners of their eye and they are called malar stripes and they're actually used to help them in hunting. And so if you put black under your eyes, your eyes would focus in and when you're going 70 miles an hour, you can't just move your head around looking at what you're hunting. So it's like a sight or a scope on a gun is for a hunter.
Kristiina (51:59)
Mm -hmm.
Right.
Dr. Laurie Marker (52:10)
And they're also useful like we wear sunglasses to actually reflect the sun's glare as well. So that is how you tell a cheetah from all the other spotted cats, because nobody knows what a cheetah is. All the spotted animals that are out there, clothing and everything like that, they're all leopard. So I want everyone to know what a cheetah is. They have polka dots. And.
Kristiina (52:14)
Mm -hmm.
Mm -hmm.
Yes.
Not rosettes, right? Yes.
Dr. Laurie Marker (52:35)
and not rosettes. And a rosette is what leopards have and some of the other spotted cats, which is a circle of spots with it's a circle of dots basically with the yellow fur in the middle. A rosetta is what it's called. And cheetahs have polka dots.
Kristiina (52:47)
Right.
Yes. Yeah.
Dr. Laurie Marker (52:52)
So we want everyone to join us at Cheetah Conservation Fund. And you can go to our website. I haven't even talked about that, which is cheetah .org. And you can follow our social media.
Kristiina (52:53)
Of course not, yeah.
Dr. Laurie Marker (53:03)
which is at CCF Cheetah. We've got all kinds of cool stuff that you can be involved in. In America, we've got chapters. You can help us in fundraising. I think that's how we got to know you. You came to one of our events to learn about the work that we are doing and then got involved. And cat lovers, if you love cats, help us save the big cats. Help us save the domestic cats' cousins because they're keeping our ecosystems healthy.
Kristiina (53:14)
Mm -hmm.
Dr. Laurie Marker (53:32)
and well for humans and all the other wildlife. And cat lovers, we need help. And I don't know if cat lovers know that. And so that's the other thing I just really want cat lovers to know is that we need help. Spread the word and help save cheetahs.
Kristiina (53:36)
Mm -hmm.
Yes, amazing. So listeners, if you want to and can help and hopefully that you can, please go to the website. I will link everything in the text under the podcast. figure out a way that works for you to support, whether it's writing letters, whether it's donating money, whether it's actually going to Namibia, putting boots on the ground and working as a volunteer or working.
guests. There are so many different ways that you can help. So please figure out a way that you can help support the cheetahs and CCF. And I want to thank Dr. Lauri Marker for appearing on the podcast today and enlightening all of us as to cheetahs and how they work and how we can help and what they need. And we didn't even get into like
90 % of my questions and asking you about your research and all of that. So we have to do a part two at some point because there's so much more to talk about about cheetahs. But I think this was a wonderful kind of intro to cheetahs for all of our listeners. And I just want to thank you so much for being available and talking to us about all of the amazing work that you have done. So thank you so much, Dr. Marker
Dr. Laurie Marker (54:51)
Thank you, I'll look forward to joining you again, I hope.