Cheetahs at the National Zoo

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Cheetahs at the National Zoo

September 30, 2012 by Mike Powell

I visited the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. this afternoon and spent the lion’s share of the time with the cheetahs. National Zoo has a very active cheetah conservation program that you can lean more about on its website. At the moment there are six cheetahs (three brothers, one female, and two cubs) that live at the zoo, according to the website.

Most of my time was spent with what I believe was the three brothers (named Draco, Granger, and Zabini), who were together in a single outdoor enclosure. If they were brothers, one of them seemed to be considerably larger than the other two. The zoo website indicates that the brothers were born in 2005.

I haven’t had a chance to go through all my photos, but thought I’d post a couple as a kind of sneak preview. I know that some folks object to photographing animals in captivity and apologize if I have offended anyone. However, especially in the case of the cheetahs, I encourage you to check out the work that is being done to preserve this magnificent species as well as others.

Cheetah in the grass

Cheetah walking

Posted in Nature, Photography, Portraits, wildlife | Tagged Canon 55-250mm zoom lens, Canon Rebel XT, cheetah, cheetahs, National Zoo, Washington DC | 6 Comments

6 Responses

on September 30, 2012 at 6:43 am | Reply Ed

Excellent shots of the most graceful of the big cats..:-)
- on September 30, 2012 at 7:36 am | Reply Mike Powell
  
  Thanks. I really do love watching them and even got to see them run a little.
on September 30, 2012 at 10:13 am | Reply Sue

Such beautiful and graceful animals. Great photos of them.
- on September 30, 2012 at 7:17 pm | Reply Mike Powell
  
  Thanks, Sue. I have a number of others that I plan to post, including some interesting facial expressions. Stay tuned!
on September 30, 2012 at 10:33 am | Reply krikitarts

I don’t see how photographing animals in captivity could be seriously objectionable–unless someone tries to present the results as having been shot in the wild or, of course, the animals are not respected and adequately cared for. I love shooting in zoos in which great care is taken to protect the welfare of not only the animals housed there but also of others of their species in their natural habitat, and the National Zoo provides fine examples of both. The Minnesota Zoo, by the way, is another.
on February 21, 2013 at 5:33 am | Reply Cheetahs at the National Zoo part 2 « Mike Powell

[…] September I did a posting about the cheetahs at the National Zoo and this is an update of sorts. This past weekend I tried to […]