Brennen's African Birthday

Today is Brennen's 15th birthday!!  The day dawned looking like this:

Still gray and cloudy

Brennen with her birthday "ice cream" cake and sparkling candles

We decided to do something we hadn't done yet - and headed off to the Emdoneni Lodge Cat Rehabilitation Center.  This was the highlight of Spencer's trip to Africa.

Here is what we saw and did:

This is a Caracal.   It is related to the Lynx and is an amazing jumper.

It was feeding time and he was jumping to get his dinner. (some raw chicken)

This is a Serval.  Also a great jumper.

Licking out the feeding bucket.

We also saw African Wildcats, but they look pretty much like your regular house cat.  The highlight was this:

This is a 2 year old male Cheetah.

There were 2 male and 2 female Cheetahs.  This is one of the males.

After Spencer's picture, he said, "Okay, I can die now."  He spent the rest of the day scheming how he is going to get a pet Cheetah.

We learned a few things about Cheetahs:  They have non-retractable claws (and they are pretty vicious looking), they can run 120km per hour (75 mph) for 400 meters then need a break, there are only 7,000 Cheetahs left in South Africa and only 1 species left, their tails are basically the steering wheel and the brakes, they 'meow', and even tame - they are still a little scary sometimes.

x