Sensing something, the steenbok stopped grazing and raised its head to look around, its large ears pricked and alert. Suddenly it snorted and was off, zig-zagging with bouncing leaps across the tall grasses of the thorn scrub. With long hair flying, a woman leapt up to give chase. A split second later another predator joined the hunt, accelerating past the woman with ease. Within moments, the cheetah had tripped the steenbok and sent it tumbling to the ground. The woman was close enough behind to help. Grabbing the antelope, she pinned it down, then guided the cat's mouth over the steenbok's throat. Again the cheetah's instincts kicked in, as it gripped its prey for the kill.

"It felt odd," says Laurie Marker. "When Khayam made her first kill, I couldn't talk about it." Some 26 years later, Laurie Marker's voice is intense as she recalls the extraordinary event. "I was killing an animal like an animal. During those months, I had to learn to think like a cheetah, to kill like one - I had to become a cheetah mother." Pausing, she adds: "But we did it - Khayam and me - it was a joint effort."

The anticipation and thrill of sitting by a waterhole, watching and waiting, is part of the magic of Africa. But couple this with the objective of teaching a cheetah to hunt and it goes beyond imagination for most of us. But that is exactly what American-born Laurie Marker did back in 1977.

Heading up a cheetah breeding programme at Wildlife Safari, Oregon, USA, Laurie took a year-old, hand-raised cheetah cub to Namibia. It was part of a ground-breaking research project to see if captive-bred animals could successfully be released in the wild. During the '70s there was much debate about breeding animals in captivity for reintroduction purposes. Could a captive-bred cheetah learn to hunt and live on its own in the wild when, normally, cubs stay with their mothers for at least 18 months learning essential survival skills? In natural circumstances cubs that lose their mothers before this critical period is over usually perish.

Khayam spent her first year growing up in an Oregon vineyard with Laurie's other youngsters - Munchkin (a young gibbon) and Sheso (her dog). Then it was to Namibia for three months, where they were to be filmed for a US television documentary. Neither had been to Africa before. Many cheetahs in captive breeding programmes in America originated from Namibia, where an estimated 20% of the world's population of this endangered animal are found (less than 15,000 remain worldwide).

Before her arrival in Namibia, Khayam had been trained to chase a cloth on a specially designed lure course in Oregon (cheetahs automatically respond to movement). Once in her native bushland, however, the young cheetah quickly progressed to pursuing a drag lure behind a moving vehicle.

Laurie began to see the world through Khayam's eyes. "When you walk around in the bush and act like a cheetah, you learn so much," she recalls. As surrogate ‘cheetah mum', she sat and watched while Khayam slept beside her. When game approached she nudged the dozing big cat, hissing: "Psst ...psst!" Perking up, the cub would momentarily look interested - before going back to sleep. Laurie knew this was how it would have been for a mother in the wild. She had to find a way of stimulating the cub to hunt. So she started stalking. Selecting a target from smaller game, she pushed Khayam forward. The young cat eventually began giving chase.

After several successful hunts, the experiment was deemed a success - a captive-bred cheetah could be taught to hunt. But the end of the research was in fact only a beginning. At that time farmers were killing hundreds of wild cheetahs each year - ones that already knew how to hunt and live in the wild. "Something had to be done," says Laurie, who has since dedicated her life to saving this beautiful endangered cat from extinction in the wild - first by touring with Khayam as ‘cheetah ambassador' during 10 years of almost constant companionship and then, in 1990, by setting up the Cheetah Conservation Fund in Namibia.

Dr. Laurie Marker co-founded the Cheetah Conservation Fund (www.cheetah.org) in Namibia in 1990. A bronze statue celebrating Khayam's life now stands in the town centre of Winston, Oregon, USA. She also adorns the CCF logo.

Spotcheck
The cheetah, Acinonyx jubatus, is the world's fastest land animal, accelerating from 0-80km/h in three seconds and reaching a top speed of around 120km/h. A single stride can covers 7-8m, while the maximum number of strides per second is four.

Originating some four million years ago, the oldest cheetah fossils have been found in North America.

Adult cheetahs have over 3000 spots. The dark tear marks beneath each eye may well enhance their visual acuity by acting as gun sights and minimizing the sun's glare.