Help Zakira The Cheetah Return To The Wild

<- UPDATE-> ~$2,855.35 of $10,000 reached from all my campaign efforts since ending the campaign 31 JAN 2021!  Thx!  Zakira WAS brought home by Christmas!  I paid the shortfall difference from personal funds collected from my efforts and Running Wild Conservation's.  Zakira was brought home!

I will post an updated video of her homecoming and what she is doing now.  I was not able to record the return myself but RWC provided the video!  Covid and travel restrictions prevented me from recording it Live for everyone.  I'll work on the return video on my YouTube account and share it with my FB one.

My YouTube Account:  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC25bqOksVyD-SfdAToam-Bg

Running Wild Cheetah Conservation runs a cheetah breeding and release project in South Africa. Their focus is to breed quality cheetahs who are raised until maturity by their moms and release of their adult cheetahs after survival training.

Zakria is a cheetah born at RWCC but from a female owned by RWCC and the male from another project. Zakira left with the other owner due to a breeders agreement after a few months being raised by her mother Kiki. Now, Zakira's owner has agreed to sell her to RWCC and the reason for this fundraiser!

100% of my total online fundraiser efforts to return Zakira home are going toward the purchase of Zakira to bring her back to Running Wild Cheetah Conservation. Zakira will be owned by RWCC. I have made special arrangements to run the fundraiser until 31 JAN 2021. If the amount is reached before this date, all additional funds raised will be split between us. If the amount is not reached, I will pay the difference to pay for Zakira. RWC will make an equal trade agreement to care for my breeding cheetahs at their project in return. Either way, Zakira is coming home, so please help fund this worthy cause.

Once returned to Running Wild Conservation, Zakira will be bred once so her cubs will replace herself and increase the population of endangered cheetahs. She will then be trained for release into a protected wild to breed and raise cubs on her own.

This is a message from Running Wild Cheetah Conservation Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/runningwildconservation Hi everyone! We are so excited to share with you the news about Zakira, the 3rd cub Kiki (Yakira) had with her C-section.

As you have probably seen just over 2 years ago when they were born we had to give up the female, Zakira, to the owner of the male who fathered the cubs. At that time we had to bring in new genetics but had no surplus funds to purchase another male cheetah. The only other option was acquiring a male on a breeding loan. Sadly the standard agreement with regards to breeding loans in the cheetah industry is a 50/50 split of cubs, and the owner of the loaned cheetah would collect their share of cubs at around 1 week after the birth. We could just not agree to remove the cubs at such a young age from their mom, especially with regards to our ethos of not removing cubs at all but allow the moms to raise them until adulthood.

After almost one year of searching we were fortunate to find such a person (a non-breeder) who owned a suitable male, and he was only interested in receiving one female cub to keep as companion for his older male cheetah, and more than willing for her to remain with the mother for a few months after her birth.

When the heart-breaking time came to let her go, we knew in the near future she would be reunited with not only us, but most importantly with her mom and brothers (Logan and Levi) and ultimately back into the wild when she's ready!

With a very comprehensive contract in place she started her new journey and we visited her a few times until we moved to our new permanent location, about 5 hours drive away from Zakira. We always kept contact with regards to her wellbeing and often (perhaps too often) pleaded to them to sell her to us. A few weeks ago our prayers were answered when they eventually agreed to let her return and at a price that we anticipated.

With the covid pandemic still hovering above all tourism globally, we are not in a position to pay the price of R165 000 (€10 000) for Zakira but we trust and believe people will open their hearts to help us get Kiki's girl Zakira, back home before Christmas.

If only these breeders would donate just one third of their offspring to responsible rewilding efforts, the wild population numbers will increase rapidly, keeping them from going extinct!
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Thanks for watching!
Dolph C. Volker
The Cheetah Whisperer