That Terrifying Moment When a Cheetah Gets Too Close For Comfort

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Animals in the wild have such an incredible way of captivating our attention and hearts. It’s one thing to view a wild animal in a documentary you see on Disney+. But it is an entirely different matter when you can see them face to face on a safari or at a zoo. Well, let’s just say for these tourists in Africa, this wild animal got just a little too close. 

Cheetah Sighting in Africa

The YouTube video posted at the top of this blog post takes our viewing to Africa. The SWNS YouTube page was able to share this video with their 400,000+ subscribers. In addition to sharing various viral content of everyday life, they also share footage of animals such as dogs, hippos, and elephants. 

Curious Cheetah Gets Close to Tourists

At the start of this short clip shown above, we see this touring vehicle has stopped because they see a cheetah on the side of the road. And well, this isn’t such a rare sight to see. Even though the cheetah population is dwindling, the National Library of Medicine states that there are approximately 7,100 adult cheetahs that live in Africa and Asia. “Of these, approximately 4,300 cheetahs (61%) live in southern Africa, 4,029 in our four study countries, and 2,300 cheetahs (32%) in eastern Africa.”

But, what was a rare sight to see was that this cheetah was getting too close for comfort. The cheetah was not in the business of minding his own on this day. He walks right up to the vehicle and stares in with his beady eyes. He leaps up and lets his paws hang over the vehicle. He’s looking inside to see what’s going on. Of course, the tourists can’t help to think that this cheetah might want them for lunch. 

Do Cheetahs Attack Humans?

Of course, when coming face to face with a wild predator, having the question “is it going to eat me?” would be on just about anyone’s mind. However, there have been no reports of a cheetah eating or killing a human. It would be far more likely for the cheetah to have to fear the humans doing them harm.

Because of the loss of habitat and issues with finding food, cheetahs are often finding themselves in new land to find the prey they need. And according to the International Fund for Animal Welfare, “When entering these human settlements, they often prey on livestock, which leads farmers to hunt and kill cheetahs either in retaliation or to protect their livelihoods.”

However, even though there are no reports of cheetahs killing humans, there is always the possibility of an attack if they feel threatened. So, we can take note of the way these tourists remained calm during this entire interaction in the video posted at the top.