Roseburg, Ore (KMTR) Wildlife Safari in Winston celebrated the latest addition to their exotic family Monday. Two newborn cheetahs will soon be available for public viewing.
Two new cubs, Kyayam and Muchamba were just 12 days old Monday, born on leap day, and in that time they’ve nearly doubled in size.
The staff says they decided to “hand raise” the cubs after noticing unsafe behavior from their mother. They say the upside to hand raising the pair will be their eligibility to become “Ambassador Cheetahs”.
“The ambassador program touches thousands of people every year,” says Carnivore Supervisor Sarah Roy, “we take them to schools, and our ambassador now, has been all over the state, all over the state of Washington, so we are pretty excited to keep that up and running.”
Roy says intense care is needed when raising the cubs. Even in captivity cheetah cubs have a 50% mortality rate within the first 30 days of their life. To keep the cubs safe staffers will practically live in the park while the cubs grow up, supervising them 24 hours a day.
The cubs will be available to the public in six months after they’ve had all their vaccinations.
