We left Etosha and headed for Ojitotongwe, to visit the Cheetah Park. Mario, the owner of the Cheetah Park, who is also a farmer, has dedicated a portion of his farmland to the cheetahs so they can have a place to live without the risk of getting shot by farmers. Although Namibia is sparsely populated, most of the land is owned by farmers. Cheetah are a nuisance to the farmers because they kill their cattle. Since Namibias economy is largely based on cattle and sheep farming (2nd only to diamond and uranium mining), the Namibian Government is not very interested in preserving the cheetah population.

There are less than 10,000 cheetah left in the world, with about 2,500 living in Namibia. They are not yet considered an endangered species but it may not be long since the Namibian Government actually encourage the farmers to shoot the cheetah when they are found on their farmland. The Cheetah Park was set up in an effort to help the farmers and the cheetah, and the vision is to enclose a 7000 hectare park that would be populated with Cheetah that were bought from farmers. The cheetah could live and breed there, and eventually be exported to National Parks where they can resume life in the wild.

The Namibian Government is very unsupportive of the Cheetah Project effort and has instated laws against:

- Exporting live cheetah out of Namibia
- Buying cheetah from farmers who have trapped them.
- Keeping cheetah in fenced in areas
- Breeding cheetah in captivity

So basically, the entire Cheetah Project is illegal. So far, they have turned a blind eye to what Mario is doing, but who knows for how long that will continue.

We took a drive through the cheetah enclosure, and watched as the cheetah were fed. Obviously since the cheetah are enclosed, there is no prey for them to hunt themselves. Apparantly, though, cheetah never lose their ability to hunt so they can still be released into the wild, once the government makes it legal.

There have been several litters born at the Cheetah Park, and one of them has become so used to humans that you could actually pet it, due to spending a lot of time at the vet as a cub after falling out of a tree and breaking one of its legs. I pet it, and quickly realized that it's not just housecats that I'm allergic to, and that the severity of my allergies is directly proportional to the size of the cat.