(Hargeisa) They suck from the bottle, purr weakly: barely a few weeks old, the puny baby cheetahs are the object of all attention. They have just been pulled from the clutches of traffickers, escaping a booming underground trade in the Horn of Africa.
On average, only half of the little cats rescued from trafficking manage to survive, and members of the Cheetah Protection Fund (CCF) are worried about the smallest of the group, the frail “Green” who weighs barely 700 grams.
“Green” and his fellows were lucky. Each year, an estimated 300 baby cheetahs pass through Somaliland to be sold in the Middle East to wealthy buyers in search of exotic animals.
Torn from their mother, shipped from Africa to war-torn Yemen and then to the Gulf, baby cheetahs can fetch up to $ 15,000 a piece (€ 13,000) on the black market.
But for that, they have to survive the journey, during which they are usually malnourished, confined in tiny cages, sometimes with their legs tied.
Less well known than trafficking in elephant ivory or rhino horns, this trade is nonetheless devastating for Africa’s most endangered feline.
Selfies
A century ago, there were around 100,000 cheetahs in the world. Today, between human expansion encroaching on their habitat and illegal trade, barely 7,000 remain.
More than 3,600 live cheetahs were traded illegally around the world between 2009 and 2019, according to a study published this year based on the study of hundreds of announcements of baby felines posted on social networks.
Their breeding is particularly difficult, capture in the wild is the only way to get it.
“At this rate […] it will cause the extinction of the species in a very short time, ”warns Laurie Marker.
Cheetahs have been treasured as pets and hunting companions since the Roman Empire.
Today, they are particularly sought after in the Gulf countries. Like beautiful cars and wads of cash, cheetahs are shown off in selfies by their owners as a sign of wealth.
“There is an overbidding, a boasting,” laments Laurie Marker, whose association tries to raise awareness about behavior in these countries: “One of our messages is not to” like “this kind of thing on social networks” .
Repression difficult
Combating this trafficking is particularly complicated, as it is centered around Somaliland, a self-proclaimed republic without international recognition and one of the poorest regions in the world.
This separatist region located between Ethiopia, Djibouti and Somalia is struggling to control its porous borders, including 850 kilometers of coastline facing Yemen.
Interior Minister Mohamed Kahin Ahmed told AFP that the small Somaliland coastguard unit is doing its best to fight the cheetah trade, but that it must also combat arms trafficking and of human beings.
In recent years, foreclosures have skyrocketed, with increased government-led crackdown.
From a handful of cheetahs in 2018, the rescue of “Green” and his congeners brings to 67 the number of cubs currently hosted in CCF shelters in Hargeisa, the capital of Somaliland.
Laws criminalizing the sale of cheetahs began to be enforced: in October 2020, a smuggling ring was dismantled and a prominent trafficker prosecuted in a landmark trial.
As part of a UK-funded program, Somaliland is also sharing intelligence with neighboring countries and Yemen to prevent the exodus of this iconic animal from Africa.
Generation without cheetah?
The government has also turned to rural communities, whose conflicted relationships with cheetahs fuel trade.
Of 13 cubs confiscated between September and November, at least four had been captured by farmers who wanted to sell them for, they say, repayment after their cattle were attacked by cheetahs.
“The next generation may never see a cheetah if this illicit trade continues,” Somaliland former foreign minister Edna Adan Ismail said at an anti-poaching conference in September.
Ahmed Yusuuf Ibrahim made it his mission to prevent this from happening.
This 27-year-old veterinarian has learned how to put rescued baby cheetahs back on their feet.
Removed from their environment, the cheetahs will not be able to fend for themselves in the wild and will eventually be relocated to a natural enclosure on the outskirts of Hargeisa.
But in the meantime, Ibrahim pampers them and makes sure they have the amount of camel meat they need: “I take care of them. I feed them, I clean them. They are my babies ”.