Until now, you didn't know you needed to hear a cheetah purr

September 16, 2017 3:45 PM

Kinji at Cheetah Experience likes meerkats but they don't like him back. However, he gets good scritches anyway. Another meerkat makes a brief appearance (as does a serval and an African wild cat) in this cheetah video from VolunteerSA. [h/t Miss Cellania]
posted by Johnny Wallflower (12 comments total)

I may not have known but I definitely suspected.
posted by 7segment at 6:45 PM on September 16, 2017 [2 favorites]

I would like an armful of meerkats please. To go.
posted by scalefree at 7:38 PM on September 16, 2017 [5 favorites]

I hate to be that guy, but ...

Cheetahs are natural predators of meerkats, and the meerkats in this video seem seriously upset by the cheetah's presence. Keeping them in an environment where they interact in this way seems both cruel and dangerous.
posted by firechicago at 8:31 PM on September 16, 2017 [8 favorites]

Here's a bonus big-cat belly rub for ya.
posted by mikeand1 at 10:25 PM on September 16, 2017 [2 favorites]

I hate to be that guy, but ...

Achievement unlocked!

(I loved the purring!! I want a cheetah, now!)
posted by greermahoney at 11:01 PM on September 16, 2017

As everyone knows, I am a huge fan of all things Felidae. The ONLY time I've been tempted to own something larger than a large house cat was when I was working on a movie with several large cats. For whatever reasons, the cheetah and I bonded. She was vicious with everyone else but me. I would have stolen that cat in a minute if I'd had the space for raise her properly. What a gorgeous creature.
posted by Purposeful Grimace at 11:27 PM on September 16, 2017 [3 favorites]

This summer I took my son to a safari-type zoo that had a raptor show. The show was really well done, better than I've ever seen before, but the last animal they brought out was a serval, to show how they hunt birds in flight. The best part though was when they released the serval from behind the arena and it came bounding over to the trainer and immediately starting winding around his legs and rubbing its head and purring loud enough for us to hear over the mic. It was so funny to see such a wild-looking thing that was basically just my own cat on stilts.

Holy shit, could it jump, tho
posted by lollymccatburglar at 12:28 AM on September 17, 2017 [2 favorites]

I've actually been there, and the meerkats had lots of places to go that were not literally touching a cheetah. I was surprised at how frozen I was near the cheetah, "This is an apex predator, this could kill me if got bored." I also got to play with a baby caracal, which is much less terrifying.
posted by jeather at 6:13 AM on September 17, 2017 [5 favorites]

They do love their scritches! Their purr is considerably louder than what you've ever heard from a house cat. It rumbles almost like large ball bearings in a heavy metal can. That and their claws don't retract. The caretakers at the reserve repeatedly warn you about this. Fortunately this one at the preserve was quite content to allow us a few pictures.
posted by wkearney99 at 9:17 AM on September 17, 2017 [2 favorites]

KITTY
posted by bile and syntax at 2:31 PM on September 17, 2017 [1 favorite]

Yes. Good kitty.
posted by fluffy battle kitten at 3:48 AM on September 18, 2017

As a consequence of the nerd-blender that is the JoCoCruise, my wife and I are now friends with a delightful zookeeper in Cincinnati. She was at one point in charge of the "ambassador cat" program there, which is to say that they had some cats -- up to the size of cheetahs -- who were acclimated to people. They use them to encourage people to think about these animals and their habitat in a more serious way. Think Jack Hannah, but on a smaller scale.

L. had in fact raised one cheetah from a kitten, and had appeared with this cheetah on no small number of regional and some national TV shows, etc. And so, when we visited a few years ago, we got to go visit this cat, and get in the enclosure with her, and pet her, and be groomed by her, and hear the BIG KITTY purr at us. It was AWESOME.

I have video, but it's not online. In it, you can hear Savannah purr pretty clearly.

Oh, and, incidentally, two other fun things about this cheetah:

First, remember that video of a cheetah and a dog running and playing in the snow around Christmastime a couple years ago? It was all over, including iO9. That's Savannah.

Second, L's job also ended up getting her the BEST of all possible Facebook profile pix a few years back. When she appeared on the Today show with Savannah, she met the star of an NBC show in the green room. The actor was super taken with Savannah, and wanted a pic -- but obviously L couldn't allow a CHEETAH to be out of her control in public like that, so she had to be in the pic, too.

So that's how L's profile pic was, for a while, her, a cheetah, and Ice T.
posted by uberchet at 9:32 AM on September 18, 2017 [3 favorites]