Loopy Lou adopts her daughter's cub
Loopy Lou and Kate left us all a bit confused at the beginning of the year.
Kate is Loopy Lou's female cub from a previous litter. At the start of the wet season both of them had 3 cubs each. Eventually Kate was found with only 2 cubs and we assumed that the 3rd cub had died. However shortly after that a mother was found with 4 big cubs. At first sight we had no idea who she was but after entering her through the computer matching program we learned that it was Loopy Lou, and that the fourth cub with her was Kate's cub.
This was very exciting news as adoption does not happen very often. It is believed that cheetahs adopt cubs from other females because the more cubs they have the higher the chances that all the cubs survive. Cheetah mothers will leave their cubs at around 18 months, after which the siblings stay together until they are sexually mature which is usually around the age of 2 years, when they become independent. Brothers will stay together forming a coalition, and females become solitary. The siblings are still quite vulnerable during this gap between the time when the mother leaves and when they become independent, so the more of them there are, the easier hunting becomes, and the more eyes there are to watch out for potential dangers.