Alice White
It is probably impossible to find a person who has never heard of cheetahs. This is an amazing cat that does not know how to retract its claws, does not consume carrion, and develops a speed of up to 115 km / h at short distances. At the same time, the animal is amazingly beautiful, graceful, and peaceful.
Naturally, such a hunter could not go unnoticed and was called by a person to help him on the hunt. The first information about hunting with cheetahs dates back to the third millennium BC. The Sumerians and Egyptians hunted with them, and later such hunting was widespread on the territory of almost all of Asia and North Africa. In the Middle Ages, outlandish animals were brought to Europe by the knights from the Crusades, where such a hunt became a symbol of the high position of the hunter and was often called the “royal hunt”. The Scythians were also familiar with this method of hunting. Before the arrival of the Tatar-Mongol Horde, cheetahs called “Pardus” were also known in Kievan Rus.
For hunting, only adult animals caught in nature were used, because there they acquired the necessary skills. After the taming of the cheetah, they were taken out to hunt either on a team or behind the back of a mounted hunter. Having found a suitable game, the hunter showed it to the beast and released the cheetah. And then the predator was already working. Usually, they hunted small antelopes, foxes, and hares, but sometimes they also hunted large animals – fallow deer, deer, kulans, and scoops.
Unfortunately, this type of hunting can already be considered extinct. If back in the 40s of the last century it was possible to meet hunters of Turkmens and Kazakhs with tamed cheetahs, now this species has practically disappeared from the wild.
