HAWKESBURY’S first cheetah has arrived from South Africa, and she’ll be part of a breeding program to help stabilise the future of her species.
Three-year-old Blanca will be joined by a handful of her kind over the coming weeks, who between them will act as ambassadors for their species, and hopefully produce some offspring to join the world’s conservation breeding efforts.
Blanca the cheetah joins a number of other big cats, primates and reptiles at Wild Animal Encounter’s (WAE) Wilberforce sanctuary.
The not-for-profit organisation is dedicated to the conservation of wild cats - including the African serval, caracal and the endangered cheetah - and has been operating in Australia and Africa for around 10 years.
Director Ben Britton and his team are new to the Hawkesbury area, and will be celebrating the arrival of Blanca with guided ‘tours’ - the cover price of which will help them continue their conservation work here and abroad.
Conservation breeding program
WAE is one of a number of zoos and aquaria around the world applying the science of ‘small population management’ to preserve threatened animal species.
These organisations work together to ensure the genetic diversity of the animals is maintained in their ‘insurance populations’, and these populations are based in various locations around the world to lessen the risk of catastrophic loss.
According to Mr Britton, there are less than 7000 cheetahs left in the wild in Africa, and organisations like WAE form insurance populations in case wild numbers continue to plummet.
“We work a lot in Africa, where we have our own conservation programs, and we’re also a registered environmental organisation - we’re not for profit, and we rely entirely on donations,” Mr Britton said.
“The cheetahs out here will be ambassadors for their species and also act as an insurance program. Many countries do this - you maintain the species and work to keep the gene pool strong.
“We work with other regional breeding programs in Australia and South Africa: the cheetah offspring from our Hawkesbury Conservation Centre could go to other institutions in Australia and increase the gene pool in this country, or they could go back to South Africa.”
Mr Britton and the team at WAE also run a research camp in Botswana, which works to preserve big cat habitat as well as wild cheetah and lion populations in the area.
“From a conservation point of view it’s two-fold: there’s no use breeding these animals in captivity if there’s no wild for them to go back to,” he said.
Hawkesbury Conservation Centre
WAE in Wilberforce is run by a small and dedicated team, some of whom are volunteers. Mr Britton and other staff members live on the site, so they can take care of the animals 24 hours-a-day.
They began setting-up the Conservation Centre in early 2017, and while they used to do a lot of outreach programs - including visiting schools to teach children about the animals and the organisation’s work here and in Africa - they will now be focussing primarily on big cats.
“There’s been a fair bit of construction taking place here over the past 12 months. It’s only been over the last few months we’ve started making our private tours available for the public to see the work we’re doing here,” said Mr Britton.
“We’ve been a hidden gem of the Hawkesbury - people have heard whispers about how things were happening out here with big cats but no one knew if it was true or not!”
They’ve had a number of tours through already. These are available by appointment on Wednesday to Saturday each week, and are on offer for groups of two-to-four people at a time (tours are restricted to ages 12 and above).
Mr Britton (40) was born in Manly and grew up in Rouse Hill, which was the conservation centre’s original home before development in the area meant they needed to find a new location.
“It’s nice we’ve been able to do it in the Hawkesbury from a sentimental point-of-view. Hawkesbury Council have been great - they were very supportive and helped a lot ensuring we could get our DAs and paperwork through so we could get the animals moved out here safely,” he said.
Mr Britton has more than 20 years of professional experience in animal husbandry and wildlife conservation which has taken him across the world, including to reserves in Africa and sanctuaries in Asia.
“I always had lots of different animals as pets growing up, and always wanted to work with animals. I spent a fair few years working at different institutions in Australia and overseas, and started Wild Animal Encounters about ten years ago,” Mr Britton said.
“Primarily we did a lot of outreach programs, going to schools, and teaching children about wildlife conservation. About four or five years ago we started focussing on the work we do at our place, rather than mobile displays.
“We’ve done a lot of stuff with National Geographic and the Today Show on Channel 9 over the years, and we’re the host for National Geographic here in Australia. It helps us get our educational and conservation messages out to the public.”
How you can help
Hawkesbury locals can help WAE and their conservation work by booking one of their small interactive tours and learning about the work they do.
As a registered charity, WAE also accepts donations, which are tax deductible.
Visit wildanimalencounters.com.au to book a tour, donate, or find out more.