“It is a testament to the progressive and far sighted policies of the Ol Pejeta Conservancy that, whilst dealing with enormous challenges on a daily basis, it makes the time, resources and space available to one rather small, Big Cat.” Simon King, Wildlife Filmmaker

Admittedly, this is a rather special Big Cat! At 4 weeks old, Toki the Cheetah and his brother, Sambu were brought into the care of the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy, in northern Kenya. They had been found as mere scraps of flesh, their mother having been killed by a lion, leaving them orphaned in August 2002.

Wildlife filmmaker, Simon King arrived at the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy, where he became their new parent, bottle-feeding them and guiding them on their early hunting forays. When the cheetah brothers were just 2 years old, tragedy struck. They were attacked by lions during the night and Sambu was killed. Toki survived the encounter but was left to confront the rest of his days without Sambu’s companionship and mutual protection. Toki went on to fend for himself in the bush but was one day, almost fatally mauled by a coalition of three other male cheetah. After the incident, Toki left the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy walking south east onto Ol Donyo Farm, a 1,000 acre sanctuary where he stayed for several months. It was decided, as Toki needed more space than the Ol Donyo Farm could provide, to move him to the Ol Pejeta Conservancy. Here, Toki has been offered a home that is secure and bountiful. Under the watchful care of the conservancy’s staff, he now has the chance for a long and happy life.

In his enclosure on the Conservancy Toki is now becoming increasingly wild and has become completely self-sufficient, killing his own prey and fending for himself in his spacious enclosure. He is no longer approachable by humans, other than those that he knows very well and has progressively become more challenging to track, even for the monitoring team!

Having hand-reared Toki and Sambu in the earlier days, Simon King became deeply attached to them. He has since followed Toki’s life closely and has made two TV programmes about cheetah orphans; “Fast Track To Freedom” and “Toki’s Tale”. For more information about these TV programmes and Simon King, please visit Simon King Wildlife.