An impressive photograph captures a group of cheetahs, the fastest land animals in the world, struggling to swim across a raging river after floods in Kenya.
The group of male cheetahs is crossing the Talek River in the Maasai Mara National Reserve to reach better hunting grounds. This photograph is one of the highly regarded entries in the 2021 Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition.
The photograph is titled “The Great Swim” and is part of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition at the Natural History Museum in London.
Christopherlini de Soyza, an investment banker and amateur photographer, took this picture during a trip to Kenya in January 2020 with her husband and a Maasai guide, after spending several hours watching the cheetahs hesitate at the riverbank. Suddenly, the lead cheetah jumped into the water, and the others followed.
“I couldn’t believe my eyes,” de Soyza said. “I really don’t remember pressing the shutter. All I remember is screaming, ‘Oh my God, what are they doing? They’re going to drown!'”
Cheetahs (Acinonyx jubatus) are quite good swimmers, but like many cats, they can hesitate before entering the water. According to de Soyza, the river in this photograph was flowing rapidly after heavy rains and flooding, but the cheetahs needed to cross to reach a larger territory with more prey. She captured the image as the cheetahs swam into the strongest waves of the river.
“I felt like the lead cheetah was talking to me,” de Soyza said. “It was looking right at me, so it felt like it was saying, ‘Put the camera down and help me.'” The river swept the group of cheetahs about 100 meters downstream, but they successfully made it across.
The four cheetahs in the photograph are part of a group of five males known as “Tano Bora”, which means “the magnificent five” in Maasai or Maa, the native language of the Maasai people. The fifth cheetah was the most afraid of the water and tried to swim behind the others. It disappeared underwater for 15 to 20 seconds, according to de Soyza, who feared the cheetah had drowned until it resurfaced and swam to safety.
“When all five cheetahs made it across, we celebrated,” de Soyza said. “We hugged each other, tears of joy in our eyes, and then the spotted cats ran straight onto the plains and began to hunt.”
The cheetah is the fastest land animal in the world.
According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), female cheetahs typically live alone unless they are raising cubs, but males can live in small groups of two to three brothers or unrelated males known as “coalitions.” A five-member coalition like Tano Bora is an unusual large group. Since the photograph was taken, one of the cheetahs has left the coalition, according to de Soyza.
The Natural History Museum in London (the organization behind the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition) noted that in the weeks leading up to de Soyza’s trip to Kenya, the area had experienced unseasonable rainfall, likely related to climate change, which caused the worst flooding in living memory for local elders.
These cheetahs did not swim back in the days that followed, and de Soyza witnessed them successfully hunting a wildebeest two days later.
