Cheetah Conservation Botswana revives old herding method

When Jeffry Moyo, a farmer in Gantsi arrived in this area in 2014, his mind was on one thing; farm and sustain his family. He had brought close to 150 goats with him. Moyo says he kept goats, but wasn’t aware that the area had many carnivores roaming around freely. He only had his eyes fixed on the price; multiply and sell. Little did he know that he would run into conflict with cheetahs that were preying on his livestock. Moyo says every day he would lose a goat, but he thought maybe they were being killed by hyenas or jackals. The goats were diminishing and as months passed, he counted losses.

“One of the days I ended up tracing it myself after seeing some footprints on the ground. I referred to the books and realised that this was a cheetah, not a jackal,” he told a group of journalists who recently toured the area. “Sometimes it would just attack and kill three not far from my kraal and that’s when I decided no, I needed to find a solution to this issue or else my kraal would be empty in no time.”