Rare Endangered Cheetahs Photographed

cbsnews ^ | February 24, 2009 | Tucker Reals

[Slings and Arrows]

*blush*

[Monkey Face]

:oþ

[Fawn]

God..so cute and magnificent. Just beautiful animals...I hate to see any go hungry or extinct or hunted....very disheartening.

[Fawn]

Ditto x 100.

[Moose4]

Looks more like a mullet.

Business in the front, party in the back...at up to 60 mph.

}:-)4

[JoeProBono]

[siamesecats]

Beautiful cats!

The little ones are so adorable.

Thanks for the ping!

[Riley]

FWIW, Assad, Jr. reminds me of a ferret.

I got to handle a ferret last weekend. Cute as a button, and probably loads of trouble. First thing he did was go nose to nose with me and give me a (very) gentle nip. Then he was all over me, nibbling at my jacket. If I didn't live alone, I'd have thought about getting one or two of the little monsters.

[dfwgator]

FWIW, Assad, Jr. reminds me of a ferret.

"I resemble that remark."

[JoeProBono]

[Fawn]

Looks like it ate too many zebras. :)

[meanie monster]

Beautiful Cats.

[Slings and Arrows]

Always a pleasure.

[Slings and Arrows]

[Slings and Arrows]

Oh yes.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

If I remember correctly, at one time cheetah’s were kept as pets by pharoahs in ancient Egypt.

They still are in some places. I think in India and I know in a few places in Africa they are kept as pets.

They are so easy to tame, so inbred and so very unsuited for the wild that it could be argues that they are the descendants of a tame animal that was dumped back into the wild.

[spetznaz]

I have to agree. There is nothing at all 'sporting' about shooting a Cheetah with a scoped rifle ....particularly when Cheetahs live on the open plains, are not afraid of humans and thus not hard to get close to(when I go to game reserves it is not uncommon for a Cheetah to jump on the vehicle, an open vehicle, just a couple of feet from the humans, so as to use the vehicle's height as a vantage point to see further out and search for game), and that are not a deadly beast by any means (a cougar would be far more dangerous than a Cheetah ....to be honest with you, a mid-sized cat like a Serval or a Lynx would be far more dangerous than the larger Cheetah)!

Thus, giving some idiot a rifle with a scope, and having him shoot at a stationary Cheetah that is not attempting to flee, would not attack, and would allow the hunter to get relatively close, is not hunting NEITHER is it sporting.

Hunting a deer or antelope that would split at the first rustle of a blade of grass is sporting (and also hunting). Trying to hit a goose or grouse is sporting, since it does take some modicum of skill(and anyways, there is food).

Going into the bush armed with a bow and hunting for bear ....you cannot eat the bear, but that is sporting. Or the type of hunting that used to be done in the olden days ....camping for weeks on Safari, double-bore heavy rifle, trudging in heavy miombo woodland after the spoor of a wounded Cape Buffalo, not knowing whether it is hiding in the thicket BEHIND you waiting to charge. Or the hunting of leopard and lion (both dangerous cats to hunt in the olden days), knowing that even with a bullet through its heart it can still reach you before its death throes.

Nowadays, the only dangerous cat to hunt is the leopard .....they are hard to get, and if you miss they can easily get you. Not even lions are hard these days ....too used to humans, and they just lay on the ground basking in the sun without a care. I've driven in the Masai Mara a few feet away from lions several times, and in each they didn't even look at the vehicle! I could probably have shot them through the eye with a .22

Anyways, killing a Cheetah with a scoped rifle is not hunting ....it is not sporting ....it is simply killing. The equivalent of killing a fly using a rubber-band.

If those guys wanted to prove their manhood they should have done it the maasai way ....grab a spear when you get to your teens, head to the bush, engage a full grown lion, become a man!

[JoeProBono]

[Sunshine Sister]

These animals look positively skeletal.

[Calpernia]

I want a Cheetah kitten!!