Okonjima is a nature reserve in Namibia. It is located among the Omboroko Mountains, overlooking a small waterfall. The Africat Foundation is located in Okonjima.
The AfriCat Foundation's headquarters are based in the 200 square kilometre private Okonjima Nature Reserve, located 50 kilometres south of Otjiwarongo in central Namibia. The AfriCat Foundation was founded in the early 1990s and formally registered as a non-profit organisation in August 1993. The Foundation's northern operation, AfriCat North, is based along Etosha National Park's south-western boundary, and strives to mitigate Human-Wildlife Conflict on commercial farmland, especially with regards to the lion, by educating Namibia's youth, encouraging adapted livestock management, and conducting essential research and monitoring of wild lion populations.
AfriCat's Cheetah Rehabilitation project was initiated to give some of our captive cheetahs an opportunity to return to their natural environment. Although hunting in carnivores is instinctive, many of the cheetahs at AfriCat lack experience due to being orphaned or removed from the wild at an early age. This inexperience, as well as their conditioning to captivity, makes these animals unsuitable for release on farmland. The cheetahs (usually a coalition of brothers and sisters) are fitted with radio-collars before their release into the 20 000ha Nature Reserve so that their welfare and progress can be closely monitored. Rehabilitated cheetahs are not released on farmland.
We visited here in June 2016.
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