gjackson said:
Awesome pic. It is amazing to hear cheetahs purr. And when they lick you, that's something else! Where was the pic taken, and what was the project?
cheers
Hi Graham - I was at Cincinnati Zoo, which is one of the world's most important conservation zoos (the cheetah is Chance, a Cat Ambassador, and he is just 2 years old and very playful - right after the pic was snapped he rolled over on his back and started swatting at a butterfly, then let me scritch his tummy!! - And I didn't get to feel his tongue - the trainers discourage licking because it can, um, lead to "nibbling" which can lead to sampling!).
I went because one of my founding board members, Dr. David Western, gave a lecture and received an award, and we were meeting with the Zoo staff and some of their patrons about collaborating on some interesting conservation projects in the South Rift Valley in Kenya (one of the projects is carnivore conservation - lions, cheetahas, wild dog, etc). In fact, this am I've a call with them to talk about us collaborating on their Earth Expeditions, a college program where we'd host students at one of our projects, and they are taught about the issues on-the-ground by local African conservationists - in our case, members of Maasai communities who are running their own lodges and game scouts program. Cool!
... cute ol' d00d.
