On Malilangwe Game Reserve in Zimbabwe a female cheetah has been keeping a secret–she’s the mother of five new cubs. The new mom has just over a year to teach them how to survive in the wilderness without her. Follow this cheetah family through the eyes of conservationist and cameraman Kim Wolhuter.
TRANSCRIPT
(chirping) [Narrator] On Malilangwe Game Reserve in Zimbabwe, (airy pleasant music) a female cheetah has been keeping a secret.
She's the mother of five new cubs.
This is a dangerous place for such small ones, so she's been hiding them in the thick undergrowth.
But her secret is about to be discovered.
Conservationist and cameraman Kim Wolhuter has spent his entire adult life filming Africa's wild animals.
He'd been following the female, gaining her trust, until she suddenly disappeared.
[Kim] I had a call on the radio that there was a cheetah with small cubs, and I thought (sighing) maybe it's her.
(squeaking) And lo and behold, it was the same mother cheetah, and she had five new little cubs.
And they were tiny, they were probably just nearly three months old.
[Narrator] Like all cheetah mothers, she has no partner or sisters to help her feed and protect these vulnerable cubs.
That responsibility is hers alone, and she has just over a year to teach them how to survive in the wilderness without her.
But the question for Kim was would she allow him back into her world.
[Kim]And it must have been within the first week, I think.
(rustling) I got out and I was filming, and the cubs came right up to me.
(squeaking) And the mother just lay over there, she wasn't even looking.
And that crew is how the whole thing started, and it was wonderful.
[Narrator] The mother's incredible acceptance of Kim would allow him to witness the lives of a wild cheetah family in a way he never imagined.
