San Francisco - WCN
In San Franciso I was met by Wendy and Guy Dabbas and Guy Combes. We set up a booth promoting CaLL and selling COOL crafts at the Wilderness Conservation Network (WCN) Expo. Wendy assisted at the CaLL table. The event raised funds through craft sales and gave exposure of CaLL and ACK activities.
More in California

by Mary Wykstra

Yesterday I had a frantic call from a man who was walking with his goats and came across two cheetahs eating a goat. The dead goat did not belong to the man, but he did chase the cheetahs away and wanted to find who the goat belonged to. Being the Holiday season, our staff in Salama are taking turns being on call and of coarse the person on call is the one furtherest away from the incident. I was able to reach Pius, who was closer and asked him to visit the site.

Why does it seem that the Holiday season is always filled with cheetah conflicts? I have two theories:

by Mary Wykstra

by Mary Wykstra

On 12 September I flew to Portland where I was hosted by Ann Warner. Ann was my host through the 21st. I attended the Carnivore TAG on the13th, presented a summary of ACK and CaLL at the Cheetah SSP on the 14th, and set up a poster presentation to promote CaLL. A poster presentation session on the16th gave AZA members and conference attendees the chance to ask questions about CaLL. The CaLL poster was awarded the honor as “Best Poster Content-Case Study/Descriptive.”

by Mary Wykstra

After the Labor Day Holiday, Guy drove me to Cleveland on 8 September where I was hosted by Julie Good. Julie is a volunteer who is donating her time to assist with web activities.

by Mary Wykstra

My visit to the US began and ended in Michigan. On 5 Sep, I was met by Guy Combes where we planned joint activities for promoting ACK and the link with the Soysambu Conservancy. The Soysambu Conservancy is where I began cheetah work in Kenya (2001) and is a location of interest for a potential cheetah sanctuary.

By Mary Wykstra

I went to the US from 4 September through 27 October. This has been to date the longest I have been away from Kenya since starting the cheetah work here.
4 September

By Mary Wykstra

On the morning that I was heading to TZ I woke at 0430 with an overwhelming urge to check on Cheetah Jane. I opened the Google Earth and entered our pass code… HMMMM she was in the same location for over 5 hours – since around 2200 the night before. I waited until 0630 and called Cosmas “Please go check the trap in the upper field… Cheetah Jane is somewhere near it and has not moved in 5 hours.” I did not expect that she went into the trap, but worried that she was stalking the calves that the Stanely Ranch kept in that field.

By Mary Wykstra

In early August ACK welcomed Steve Bircher from the St. Louis Zoo to our home and our camp. Steve is our link to the St. Louis Zoo where we have received grants for our Cheetah Scouts and collaring work. Steve came out to Kenya and Tanzania to get a closer look at our work and how we are doing with the St Louis Zoo support.

Eco Sys Action employee, Hassan Njenga, visited the Kalule area. Here the community has decided to make environmental caretaking a priority. They currently have about three self help groups in the area who work with water supply, school building and tree nursery. Other programmes the groups would like to be more involved with are Poultry production