Top Ten Southern Africa Off-the-Beaten-Path Adventures

The lion really can lie down with the lamb—or at least the cheetah can. So the biologists of this Earthwatch cheetah conservation project believe, anyway. Your job: to assist in live-capturing and radio-tracking cheetahs and other big cats on the wilderness ranches of central Namibia—the last place on earth where cheetahs still exist in reasonable numbers. Local ranchers used to shoot them on sight, but now many are cooperating with the study, which seeks to prove that cats only rarely hunt livestock if their natural prey is readily available (and on these ranches it is). You, the paying volunteer, have the satisfaction of both contributing directly to the conservation of these cats while at the same time experiencing the adventure of chasing after and handling them.