Cheetah brothers arrive at Chester Zoo
Their arrival marks an important step in global efforts to safeguard one of the world’s rarest big cats.
We’ve welcomed Kendi and Tafari, two young Northeast African cheetah brothers, to our conservation zoo.
With fewer than 500 of their kind left in the wild, their arrival offers new hope for the future of this endangered species.
The one-year-old siblings made the journey from Yorkshire Wildlife Park to join us here at Chester Zoo, where they will play a vital role in the global conservation breeding programme for the Northeast African cheetah.
Our carnivore experts have captured the first moments the brothers stepped into their new home - curiously and playfully exploring their surroundings together for the very first time.
The arrival of Kendi and Tafari marks a significant moment for cheetah conservation. At 18 months, the brothers are young, inquisitive and confident. They’ve been inseparable since the moment they arrived - spending much of their day side by side as they explore their new home together.
Dayna Thain, Carnivore Keeper at Chester Zoo
With fewer than 500 Northeast African cheetahs estimated to remain in the wild, this subspecies is one of the world’s rarest big cats. Just three decades ago, several thousand roamed across Northeast Africa. Today, they are found only in small, fragmented populations across South Sudan, Uganda, and Ethiopia - having disappeared from much of their former range in Somalia, Kenya, and Sudan.
Despite living inside protected areas, wild cheetahs face growing threats from habitat loss, conflict with humans as they hunt livestock, and the illegal wildlife trade. As a result, the species is listed as Endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
The brothers - who form a lifelong bond known as a ‘coalition’ - will eventually be joined by genetically matched females as part of coordinated breeding efforts to create a healthy, sustainable safety-net population in conservation zoos around the world.
