Yes, the cheetah is the fastest running animal alive, reaching 70 miles per hour. No, you can’t escape, even if you tried, you need a car going on the highway to avoid dodging if one chases you. And these feral cats learn to run at a very young age, even as pups they are fast, agile and have lots of energy.

Cheetahs are also very social and make all kinds of sounds, this is their way of communication. They use it when they hunt, rest, play, and some of those sounds are mating calls, which also evoke biological responses.

There was an excellent article on this in a San Diego Zoological Society publication “ZooNooz” in their December 2009 issue titled; “You Hear What I Hear: New Breeding Protocol for Cheetahs,” by Karyl Carmignani (Staff Writer) along with great up-close photography by award-winning zookeeper and photographer Ken Bohn of the San Diego Zoo.

According to his article, zookeepers keep track of the sounds cheetahs make and know when a male and female are ready to mate. In fact, they have now recorded these sounds along with the others. And there are many according to the article; “purr, chirp, growl, growl, hiss, cough, moan,” but it is the singing that arouses the female and “activates her biological functions to drop eggs” on her female parts and jump-start her reproductive system.

This is fascinating, and it’s great that the San Diego Zoo can use these sounds and speakers to help this process, so many healthy calves are born at exactly the right time, even in captivity. It is amazing that the science of zoology is saving endangered species. Perhaps these techniques can be used to help other animals in the animal kingdom to do the same?

Wildlife conservation is very important for species that are having a hard time in the wild, some due to human encroachment and/or hunting, and damage caused to the food chain by human activity. In fact, I hope you consider all of this when thinking about wildlife conservation.