Cheetah Rescue Mission After Leopard Attack (4K Documentary).

It's a quiet morning on the Okunjima Wildlife Reserve, a 40,000-acre site in central Namibia. But the peace is about to be shattered after a worrying report concerning one of the AfriCat Foundation's rescued cheetahs. When four-year-old cheetah Frankie entered the reserve, the early signs indicated he was a prime candidate for release back into the wild. He's chewing. He's chewing on a stone block. Frankie seemed particularly adept at hunting and was soon keeping the group well-fed. Frankie did the proper, you know, kind of throttling kill here. Never hunted in his life before and got it right first time. So it's going to go from strength to strength. I'll be pulling down a giraffe next, I guess. But this morning, rescue and release officer Dave Houghton is racing to where Frankie has been spotted after an encounter with a leopard. OK, well, we're just rushing out. We've just had a radio call from Jacques, one of the guides. He's found Frankie from the group of five, from Coco's group, laying on the grass on his own. The rest of the group have moved away. He says he looks like he can see blood next to the collar, which is probably going to mean a leopard bite. So I'm on my way in a bit of a hurry to see, you know, what's what. Having been raised in captivity, Frankie will never have encountered a leopard before. He wouldn't know to stay clear of this stronger, much more powerful predator. At the site, Frankie is down. He's breathing, but barely conscious. The trouble is, their skin is so thick, they get a bite wound and then it kind of closes up again. But it certainly looks like he's had a bite to the neck. There's no telling how badly Frankie's injured, but without immediate veterinary care, he could die from his wounds. I've picked him up. There's dry blood on the right side of his neck, next to the collar. But he's still alive and he's now on the back of the car heading back to Africa, and Carla's phoning the vets to try and see if they're there so that we can get them into town as quickly as possible and see what Axel can do. It's an hour's drive to the nearest veterinary surgery. Once he arrives, Frankie is examined by Dr Axel Hartmann. Axel thinks the attack happened the previous night. He was pretty out of it when I got there. A bite from a leopard can become infected incredibly quickly. Whether they've got to Frankie in time remains to be seen. Cheetahs and leopards have to learn to coexist on the reserve, just as they would in their natural habitat. But there are some leopards rescued by the Foundation that will never go back to the wild. And this morning, Dave is hoping to catch up with one of them. He's been contacted by the reserve's chief park warden, Maurice Nicholls, known as Mush. A tour guide out with a party of paying guests has spotted one of the reserve's most elusive leopards, six-year-old male TJ. TJ was born in the reserve to parents that were rescued from farmers' traps. Too habituated to people to be released into the wild, TJ now lives in a 4,000 hectare area in the centre of the reserve. He's overdue for his annual vaccinations and the team doesn't want to miss an opportunity to catch him. The guide's called me and he's fast asleep now. He normally does not hang around for that long and sleep. And I'm pretty sure if he sees us coming, he might move. So we'll have to see what our luck is like today. There's Jacques now. Jacques, just jump in the back here. Dave, it's about 200 metres up here. Just behind that, go a little bit forward, Mush. Clear shot. If that's the case, Mush, I need to get a dart ready. Yeah, you get everything ready. Get it ready here and so there's no strange noises. See the big maleficent just behind this bush, see the next bush? Yeah. On the left from that bush, he's lying. TJ is used to being approached by vehicles, but he's been darted many times before and might run if he spots the rifle. It's the noise you do, he knows that noise. Ready, Dave? Yeah. The team needs to get close enough to dart him, but not so close that he spots Dave and the dart gun. There he's sitting upright, Mush. TJ's awake and in a perfect position to be darted. What distance is that, Mush? 15 metres. I'm going for it then. Dave will only get one chance. The leg. He couldn't see me. That's excellent. Give him a little bit of time. One thing we don't want to do is go crashing in there and find him still awake because I think he's going to be very angry. Leopards are incredibly powerful cats, easily able to bring down large prey such as wildebeest in the wild. The team will only approach him when they're certain he's asleep. Listen. I can hear the birds still, the franklin making a noise. They're keeping an eye on him because a leopard will love to eat a franklin. It's one of their favourites. There's a big discussion of what is a leopard's favourite food. Most of the time we don't see this. We see him eating an impala, we see him eating a buck, but all the time between here and finding the buck, he's killed a mouse, he's eaten a grasshopper, he's eaten five or six birds. So birds are very high on his menu. So that's why those franklins are keeping a very good eye on where he is. Let's go. Once the bush goes silent, the team decides to move in. Leopards can run at speeds approaching 40 miles per hour, so TJ might have travelled quite some distance before succumbing to the effects of the anaesthetic. We picked up his signal going in this direction. So he has walked quite a way. He's close. Where? Very close. Close where? On the left. On the left, OK. I'll stop on the corner here. We're on him. We're standing on him. The team has to be careful. They're now in TJ's territory. And if he's still awake, there's no telling what might happen. At the Okonjima Wildlife Reserve in central Namibia, male leopard TJ has gone to ground after being darted for his annual vaccinations. We'll take some more drugs with me, just in case. Let's get my box here. The radio signal suggests he's somewhere in the area, so Dave has to be careful. He's now been 18 minutes, so if he's not, you know, almost there by now, and if he's, you know, flopping around and I need to give him some more, I'm just going to take some just in case. I'd rather be safe than sorry, obviously, so... You can see him? Yeah. TJ's down, but still moving. He's not altogether sleeping yet. Dave's just going to give him a little bit more drugs, just to give him a top-up quickly. TJ's under, and the race is on. Anesthetising any animal is risky. The longer TJ's down, the greater the chance of complications. But manoeuvring a fully-grown leopard isn't something that can be done quickly. Give me one side. TJ weighs more than nine stone. It's a 20-minute ride back to base, and the team can't afford to hang around. But Dave can still allow himself a moment to appreciate being up close and personal with one of Africa's most iconic creatures. Nice pair of teeth there. I wouldn't want to get in the way of those if he's angry. This is the sort of thing I imagined when I was a kid, when I always dreamed of living in Africa. Maybe not driving along with a leopard on my lap, but certainly the beauty of this place, the great scenery and all the wildlife close by, and it's something that money can't buy, really. It's an experience, and I'm just, you know, I'm basically one of the lucky ones, I think. Back at base, TJ is unloaded, so Dave can change his radio collar. It's very light, so I'm working as fast as I can. What's the number, Mush? We've got a magnet. I'm just activating the collar. Let's give him his vaccination. I'm going to vaccinate him for all the normal diseases that you'd give a domestic cat, plus rabies. I'm just going to give him the reversal. TJ will soon be on his feet and ready to go back into the reserve. I'm now for a pot of tea as opposed to a cup. It's been hectic running around, but the job's done. Everybody's happy. Hopefully the leopard will be up soon. As soon as TJ heads up, I'll be very happy. Once TJ has recovered from the effects of his anaesthetic, he's ready to enter the reserve once more. He's actually looking the wrong way, so I might have to do a little bit of door fluffing. Dave has designed a pulley system, which will enable him to open the door to the crate from the safety of his truck. But it looks like TJ will need a little encouragement to leave. After a stressful ordeal, the darkness provides a reassuring level of security. Only once he's certain he's in no immediate danger does he turn and head off for the safety of the bush. That all went very well. He did take a little bit of time to come out. I did have to fiddle with the door a bit to get his attention, but he's gone out, he headed off in this direction and veered off over there. Not too fast, I mean, he was quite keen to get away from me, but, I mean, he'll settle down soon. As the sun rises over the reserve, Dave is coming to terms with some tragic news concerning four-year-old injured cheetah Frankie. He had a phone call to say that, you know, he seemed to be OK, I mean, he was eating, and he came back. I went and picked him up, came back with, you know, armfuls of antibiotics, which I had to give him every day, and his food. And he seemed to be doing good, and then on the third day that he was back, I just noticed he just wasn't right. You know, he was holding his head at a funny angle, and I just needed to take him back to the vets. So when I took him back, Axel had a look at him, knocked him out and had a good, close look, and all the infections were setting all under here, and basically all the skin was all basically dead. It was, you know, there's no way to save it. So, unfortunately, we had to put him down. And I stayed there when Axel put him down, and I was talking to him and telling him what a good job he'd done, and, yeah, that's just the way it is. And he went and... Frankie's death is shattering news, but thankfully the rest of the group seemed fine. These four are getting on with it very well. They're hunting just as successful as when they were five. It's nice to come up here and get a look out. You know, this is where the cheetahs are. We've got... Well, we've lost Frankie, but it's nice to know that they're doing so well and maybe cheer them on. Despite the tragedy, Dave is determined to continue with the Foundation's release project. It's not going to affect this whole programme. I mean, you know, we've got to get the cheetahs in the rehab and out into the wild, and that's basically where they belong, that's where they should be. We know that there's going to be some losses along the way. We're not going to use that to stop the chance of all the other cheetahs we've got from going back in the wild. A new day brings more positive developments for one of the Foundation's younger residents. I don't know whether he's going to come out, but I'm going to stick his food in here. Try and lure him out. OK. If you know how he likes his crate now, he's been in it for a month. He likes his food, so it might work. Eight-month-old cheetah cub Quatro has been recuperating after getting the all-clear from the veterinary team. Hey, boy. Quatro was rescued when he broke his leg and has spent nearly a month confined to a small crate. Dave and his partner, Director of Welfare Carla Conradi, now need to help him build up his strength again. They've placed a bowl of food in a small enclosure with access to the outside, hoping to tempt him out and get him moving. He's looking. He's looking. Yeah. But after such a long time in his crate, Quatro is nervous about leaving. He wants that food so badly, but he doesn't want to. Hmm? Oh, he's out. Good. OK, my boy. Put this in. Get him back in there. You a hungry boy? Huh? He was hungry. I just don't know what he's going to do now when he's finished his food. He said he can't get back into that crate. You need to use that leg. He is putting weight on the leg, on the foot there, so it's not all bad. I mean, you can see there's no muscle there whatsoever. After quite an ordeal, it looks as though Quatro is going to make a full recovery. But Dave and Carla will have to remain patient. Now he needs to get over his fear of going outside, but I'm sure that's going to happen soon. It's not going to be long before his curiosity gets the better of him. You shut the door. Yeah. Left to his own devices, Quatro finally takes his first tentative steps into the big wide world once more. If everything goes to plan, he'll soon face a host of exciting new challenges as he continues his journey to life back in the wild. But all in good time.