The fastest mammals in town arrived last fall, without fanfare.
For more than eight months, in a corner of Lincoln Children’s Zoo not yet open to the public, the three cheetah sisters from St. Louis have been getting to know their new surroundings -- their high-tech bedrooms with heated floors, their own kitchen, their 10,000-square-foot grassy playground.
And cheetah-keeper Emily Pasch has been getting to know her new animals.
How tight they are as a group, often sleeping together, playing and play-fighting, taking care of each other in fur-filled grooming circles. But also how each has her own personality, as distinct as the facial markings the keepers use to tell them apart.
Nane likes to study her keepers, watch while they clean the cheetah quarters or prepare each animal’s daily 2½ to 3 pounds of meat. “I call her my angel girl,†Pasch said.
The public won’t meet the cats until sometime next month, but in cheetah circles, the 2-year-olds are already famous -- part of the record-setting Bingwa’s Bunch, the only documented litter of eight reared at a zoo.
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The three male and five female cubs were born in November 2017 at the Saint Louis Zoo to Bingwa and Jason, and named for Swahili numbers.
Sita, Saba and Nane (Six, Seven and Eight) were selected to move to Lincoln as part of an Association of Zoos and Aquariums’ Species Survival Plan, an effort to maintain a genetically healthy population of the threatened species.
They arrived in October and were joined in February by Bella and Moyo, a male and female pair from Columbus, Ohio. All five will eventually be on display, though the zoo is keeping the two groups separated.
At nearly 90 pounds apiece, the cheetahs are the biggest stars of the second expansion phase at the zoo, which last year doubled its size with a $23 million investment in indoor and outdoor exhibits, including the city’s first tigers and giraffes.
Cheetahs are new to the area, too, said John Chapo, the zoo’s president and CEO.
“This is historical for Lincoln,†he said. “It’s absolutely historical.â€
Chapo couldn’t yet say when in July the animals will go public, or at what point zoo-goers will be able to settle into the shaded bleachers overlooking the 200-by-50-foot run.
The zoo -- closed by the pandemic for 10 weeks -- reopened June 1 with crowd-controlled Wildlife Walks, designed to keep guests moving at socially distanced intervals.
But when guests do get to see the animals, they’ll witness the speed and agility they’re known for. The sisters aren’t shy about making the most of their new run, batting a ball around, leaping over each other, chasing the sound of the nearby train whistle while covering the ground in moments.
“It’s a lot of room for them,†Chapo said. “And you can see when they open up, they need that space.â€
Photos: New cheetahs settle in at Lincoln Children's Zoo