I am just sitting here thinking ahead for my first African hunt. I have hunted US for elk, mule deer, whietail, etc. and Canada for black bear. But never Africa.
My plans are for basic plains game: Kudu, gemsbok, zebra, etc. However if Cheetah was available would you consider it?
Thanks

I would not. They are too much like dogs for me to want to shoot one. I would feel like I had shot the neighbor's pet.

I jumped off the bakkie in Botswana's Okavango to try to pet a couple of cheetah brothers hunting as a pair, but they would have none of it. They skeedaddled as soon as my feet hit the ground, though they let the bakkie drive to within 20 feet of them.

I had hoped to pose with them for a photo snapped by the PH. We would all be sitting on our haunches, me between the two cheetah brothers with my arms around their necks, affectionately.

Swim with the sharks, run with the cheetahs ...

If you are in the U.S. it would be an expensive photo if you did shoot one. You can not bring them into the U.S. yet as far as I know.

I think I would shoot one if it were free. They are considered pests on many of the farms there so you may be able to make a deal.

I could have shot one in Zim in March.
Since I could not bring it back into the US, I did not even think about shooitng it.
WE watched him for quite a while, he was a beautiful cat.

Yes, yes, the CITES problem is common knowledge.

Not much sport in shooting a cheetah. If they needed thinning out as varmints it would be a neccessary evil.

But that is probably more like the wolf thing around Yellowstone Park.

It is certainly a personal matter as to whether you want to shoot one or not. If it is legal game where you are hunting I would have no problem shooting one if for no other reason than it would be an interesting animal to see up close.

People hunt for different reasons. A lot of the "sport" of any hunting varies so much do to situations that are not under our control. Some hunts will be easy and some will be a real challenge. Off the top of my head I can not think of a legal hunt of any kind that I would cosider "unsporting." Certrainly some are more difficult and more rewarding.

If you want to take a cheetah and it is legal, have at it. It may be considered impolite not to if you are hunting on a farm experiencing livestock predation. Just make sure you work out the details of any cost before you go out hunting.

Here's a couple of pictures of me with a Cheetah taken in 2005. The claws on cheetah are very sharp, even on young ones!

Isn't there a move in Nambia to make them more of a big game animal for hunters,,seem to remember some thing about the farmers shooting them out pretty bad there due to live stock loss,and some one or group moving to get them clear of CITIES

Cheetah is one animal I will not hunt.
Leopard on the other hand
And don't ask why.
ozhunter

My 8 year old daughter reads my Safari magazines with me and is obsessed with wanting to shoot a cheetah when she is older. She even has a photo that I copied off of a Outfitters web sight of a hunter with his cheetah tapped to one of her targets on her bed room door.

I think it's cool but we will se how long it lastes!

Don't show her the pictures of me with the Cheetah cub then.

With all of one trip to Namibia behind me, I have the impression that cattle farms that take hunters (as opposed to hunting farms) treat the cats as vermin. I stayed at a farm in June where the owner needled me about not shooting a cat or jackal every day. While this was good natured fun, the topic was a source of friction between the owner and the PH I was with. In the end, the owner said that even if I wasn't interested in a cat, I should shoot any I saw and we'd work things out later. I probably would have taken the shot had one come up and I may have even been aiming at the cat too.

Dean

When I hunted in Zimbabwe I came across cheetah which were on quota however they could not be imported to the US so I had no interest.

After seeing them in the wild I came under the impression that they couldn't be much of a challenge once you found one.

Later, I got one of the PH's to admitted flat out that cheetah were not much of a trophy. The man didn't make such a statement about duikers!

He said if you didn't kill them with the shot that all you had to do is watch where they ran because they would run full out until they dropped. Then it was just a matter of walking up and finishing them off point blank because they could not get up for several minutes after that sprint.

Bah ! Unless you've been chasing it with a damn Toyota ... I have hunted about 15 weeks in Namibia now .. and I haven't found them to be an easy target ... Heck, a snow leopard is attainable once the cross hairs are on the shoulder ... trying to get that accomplished is a chore ...

No, I would not shoot a cheetah. They're not the least bit dangerous, unlike lion or leopard.

Danger is the only draw to me of hunting a predator.

I had absolutely ZERO motivation to shoot this cheetah in the SAVE Conservancy. Ditto with the white rhino we tracked, or the wild (painted) dogs we saw in Sapi. Just getting pictures of these animals in a wild area was a treat.



MR - You might actually be in the majority on this one!

Personally, I'd rather have one as a pet/sight "hound" if their temperment is controllable.

quote:

Originally posted by Bill C:
MR - You might actually be in the majority on this one!

Is it too late to change my mind?

I get a sense that of all the stuff I've seen (and shot) in Africa, these guys are the most trusting - of all african animals they are about the only wild(!) thing that is tameable quite happily. I'm not convinced they do real damage at all - quite the reverse sometimes - a few of the airports have tame ones to keep the pigs down from straying on the runways

I wouldn't shoot one

Hollis