African Wildlife & Environment Issue 85

GOOD READS

Cheetah (Photograph: John Wesson)

Then a bombshell fell upon the Mills family when SANParks unilaterally decided to retire staff members at 60 instead of 65! To their huge credit the Trustees of the Lewis Foundation agreed to cover Gus’s salary for five years, and the dream became a reality! The book is an absorbing and fascinating story of how Cheetahs survive and indeed thrive in the seemingly inhospitable environment of the Kalahari. Gus and Margie share the narrative, with Margie’s text on a sand-tinted background. There are numerous excellent photographs, virtually on every page, that illustrate the varied aspects of the lives of the Kalahari cats. To get such exceptional photographs and accurate observations meant that Gus and Margie virtually had to live like Cheetahs themselves, spending their days and nights out in the dunes, following the animals and documenting the intimate details of their lives. The book is divided into five parts: 1. Background and Introduction; 2. What’s for Dinner?; 3 Social Affairs; 4. Other Adventures and Experiences and 5. Practical Questions. Cheetahs are iconic and charismatic carnivores, and have fascinated humans for centuries. Long regarded as an endangered species, the Cheetah spoor was adopted as the logo of the Endangered Wildlife Trust by Clive Walker when he, James Clarke and Neville Anderson founded the EWT 50 years ago in 1973. Today the species seems

areas to do research on wild animals through thick and thin, heat and cold and often seemingly insurmountable challenges. I know several biologists whose marriages have foundered on the incompatibility of such career decisions. The 50 years that Gus and Margie have spent together are briefly described in the introductory chapters of this book, while the content is about the five years they spent studying the Cheetahs in the Kalahari. They had previously worked on hyaenas in this national park many years before. Fast Cats is a popular account of their research. The hard science is the subject of a scholarly 224 page publication from the Oxford University Press, called Kalahari Cheetahs. Adaptations to an arid region which has received wide acclaim from the academic community and carnivore specialists. After a long career with South African National Parks, and with five years to go before his compulsory retirement at age 65, Gus persuaded Margie to spend those years with him studying the Cheetahs of the Kalahari, which had not really been deeply researched, for reasons that became apparent before long. Gus then managed to persuade his employers to agree to his transfer to the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park for his last five years before retirement, and he received financial support from Howard Buffet and the Lewis Foundation for running costs and for building a house at Twee Rivieren in the KTP.

5 | African Wildlife & Environment | Issue 85 (2024)