“It took him several hours to warm up to his new mother.”īy night time, Crosier said, “he was in the pile with everybody”, sleeping with his new cheetah mum and four new siblings. “He only had one night with his own mother,” Crosier said. “It was very nerve-racking to put him with another cheetah family,” Crosier said.Īt first, Crosier said, he was confused when he met his new cheetah family. The caretakers brought hay from the foster cheetah family’s den and put it in his carrier so they could increase his chances of being accepted by his new mum if he “smelled like a cheetah” rather than have a human scent on him, according to Crosier. On October 3, he flew on a chartered flight with caretakers to Oregon.Ĭrosier said it was “intense” taking a six-hour flight with a young cub that had to be fed every few hours, and she held him on her lap most of the time and warmed his bottles for each feeding.īut once they landed there was one issue – his smell. So they started coordinating to take it to Oregon. Normally cubs pile together when their mother leaves, but he didn’t have another cub to cuddle with, so “we gave him the animals”, she said.Ĭheetah caretakers said they knew there was another litter of cheetahs being born soon at a breeding facility in Oregon, and they thought it would be a good match if they could get their baby cheetah to join the other newborn cubs there. He was bottle-fed every few hours for 17 days and kept in a temperature-controlled environment, experts said.įor comfort, he was surrounded by stuffed animals so he’d “feel like he has a friend”, Crosier said. Officials said Sukiri is “doing just fine”, and they plan to try to breed her again in the spring.Ĭaretakers stepped in and started bottle-feeding her cub around the clock, Crosier said. “It sounds harsh, but it’s a very natural behaviour,” Crosier said. PHOTO: SMITHSONIAN CONSERVATION BIOLOGY INSTITUTE A male baby cheetah (R) that was abandoned by its mother in Virginia, is shown with his new adopted cheetah family in Oregon. His mother nursed him after he was born and checked on him overnight but abandoned him the next morning. Female cheetahs are “unable to care for a single cub” because they don’t have enough milk stimulation, according to Adrienne Crosier, cheetah specialist at SCBI. The other baby cheetah was born on September 16, but he was the only one of a litter of three that survived and was abandoned by its mother, seven-year-old Sukiri. Officials at the National Zoo, said the newborn cubs “look good”. Their mother, Rosalie, went into labour and delivered the five cubs in about six hours. Officials with the National Zoo’s sister facility – the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute (SCBI) in Front Royal, Virginia – said the baby cheetah made it safely to its new home at the Wildlife Safari in Winston, Oregon, where it met its new cheetah family and is doing well.Īnd at the institute in Front Royal, officials said they also have welcomed five newborn cheetahs on Tuesday. THE WASHINGTON POST – A nearly three-week-old baby cheetah that was abandoned by its mother and bottle-fed at the National Zoo’s facility in Virginia has found a new home with a cheetah foster mum and her cubs in Oregon.