When practically any wild animal gives birth, they are extremely protective of their newborn babies. Mothers are renowned for going above and beyond to keep their little ones safe and cheetahs are no different. When Milani, a cheetah at the Metro Richmond Zoo in Virginia, gave birth to five tiny cubs, all of her caretakers were on high alert. This is her story.
Milani was a first time mother and had been through a lot in her three years on Earth. Born in Namibia, she had been captured by poachers who planned to sell her in the illegal exotic animal trade. Thankfully, she was rescued before they could profit off of her misfortune and sent to the Metro Richmond Zoo for rehabilitation. The zoo is known world-wide for their cheetah conservation and research center, where teams of experts collaborate to focus on maintaining the health, population numbers, and overall well-being of cheetahs. Through the center’s work, the number of cheetahs has recovered from all-time lows after dropping 90% and stabilized. However, it took years to accomplish this and back when Milani arrived at the center, the situation was still dire.
Milani was healthy and in the prime of her life, so the conservation center was eager for her to have cubs with one of the six male cheetahs who lived alongside her. However, she showed little to no interest in any of them and was more of a loner who preferred to explore and be on her own. Despite the expert’s best efforts, she shunned all her male suitors, until a new cheetah named Beau arrived. Beau was also from Namibia, and it was believed that Milani knew him from her time in the wild. When they were introduced to one another, it became clear that she liked him as she accepted him into her territory and even rubbed up against him! Her caretakers were ecstatic at the development and waited to see if the pair would mate.
It didn’t take long before Milani’s stomach started to grow, and an ultrasound confirmed that she was carrying five cubs. The elation at this news was soon replaced by worry and fear because Milani had suffered from a large wound to her tummy when she was in captivity that ran down her chest. She likely had internal damage from this and as her cubs grew, they pressed up against her intestines interfering with their function and making for a risky and difficult pregnancy. At this point in time, the cheetah population was at record lows and so a decision was made to see out her pregnancy despite the risks involved.
Now heavily pregnant, Milani was moved into a special enclosure where she was monitored 24/7 by experts. Despite all the care she received, she slowly grew weaker and at times even refused to eat anything. Her attitude changed as well, she became much more aggressive, weary, and seemed on edge, even charging at a zookeeper who went to feed her on one occasion. This led to her being classified as a high risk animal who had to be handled with added caution. It also meant caring for her was going to be much harder, as what little trust she had towards humans seemed to be rapidly dwindling.
The more pregnant she grew, the more nervous she became, and special arrangements were made to keep her as relaxed and happy as possible. A small wooden enclosure was built in her area, giving her a comfy, dark, safe space to give birth in. Just days later Milani began having contractions and silently entered the box, with experts watching over her from a live video feed. The birth of her cubs was long and stressful, but she came through it with all five cubs being born.
The moment everyone had been waiting for had finally arrived and now they had to check on the cubs and Milani. A young vet who had a good relationship with Milani was chosen to enter the enclosure and he was extremely nervous about what might happen. There was no way of knowing how she’d react to someone approaching her newborn cubs while she was in such a vulnerable state. The vet slowly made his way towards her and surprisingly Milani rolled over, showed him her cubs, and allowed him to handle and inspect them.
Once he’d checked on Milani, who appeared healthy yet obviously exhausted, he began running tests on each cub checking their vitals, weight, and eyes. When he got to the fifth born cub, he could tell it wasn’t ok, it had a larger than usual head and wasn’t a heathy weight. He left them to rest, and later tests confirmed it suffered from a birth defect, but soon afterwards the cub began having trouble breathing. Not wasting any time, the young vet went back into the enclosure and scooped up the baby, rushing it to an adjoining medical tent. The cub was fading rapidly and despite all possible measures that were taken, its prognosis was dire. The defects were too severe, it was suffering, there was simply no way it would have a normal healthy life, and a decision was made to humanely euthanize it.
Thankfully, Milani and her other four cubs were healthy. She turned out to be a great mother and her cubs grew up quickly. She even started to trust some of the zookeepers, bonding and growing close with the one who first checked on her cubs. Three years later, it turned out she was pregnant again!
For her second pregnancy, she was one of three cheetahs at the center who were pregnant. Two others, Vaila and Waiy, were first time mothers and Vaila was turning out to be aggressive towards her keepers as her pregnancy progressed. Being the oldest and largest female, Milani demanded respect and used it to help out the zookeepers. When Vaila acted out and snarled menacingly at a vet, Milani loudly yelped, bared her teeth, and put the younger cheetah in her place.
Other more pressing issues faced the vets, as they needed to prepare for the 3 births and more than 10 expected cubs. Enclosures had to be built, surveillance set up, checkups performed, and round the clock monitoring was put in place. The vet who had first approached Milani after she gave birth was in charge and was personally overseeing Vaila because she was expecting seven cubs, making her the most at risk.
Over eleven days, the teams oversaw the birth of thirteen cubs. Milani had 3, Waiy had 5, and Vaila had 5 that survived. Sadly, Vaila ended up losing two cubs to similar breathing problems that Milani’s cub had suffered from. These new additions are crucial to cheetah recovery, as only some 7,500 remain in the wild. The greater genetic diversity, the healthier the numbers will be. Not to mention all the publicity that the thirteen baby cheetah cubs brought to the conservation program, enabling their efforts to grow and continue on.
In the past 10 years, over 90 cheetah cubs have been born at the center. This led to the change from their designation as endangered to vulnerable, so there are still a lot of pressing issues facing them. However, their recovery can be attributed in major part thanks to Milani and her cubs.
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