Adults have over 2000 spots!

Cape Town is gorgeous. The weather was rainy today so we weren't able to go up Table Mountain but we drove to the wine-lands which was a good consolation prize. We went to the SPIER winery and my mom did a wine tasting and even bought some. Part of the property is also dedicated to a "Cheetah Outreach" program. They have twelve adults and four cubs fenced in and people can go in and pet them during the day. The project is having cheetahs who have been born in captivity and raised by humans act as "ambassadors." You pay a certain amount to go pet the cheetah and the money goes to breeding Anatolian Shepherd Guard dogs which guard livestock from wild cheetahs so that farmers will stop shooting them. There are only about 10,000 left, and they are the most endangered big cat in the world. So long story short, I got to pet a cheetah today, it was amazing! He was lying down and there was someone there with him just in case things went wrong but it was fine, cheetahs sleep 16-18hrs a day anyway so he kind of just acted like we weren't even there. Some part of me felt pretty weird about the fact that these are 'tame' cheetahs living closed in but they seemed happy, they had a lot of space and they don't seem to mind the attention. And if it's helping to save cheetahs from extinction then that's pretty cool right? My mom and I got to pet a six year old adult named Kaya but I saw the four cubs that are apparently going to California next week to be part of a sister organization. They are so beautiful...