A cheetah. [Photo/China Daily]

'Killed like flies'

Marker raised an orphaned female cheetah cub named Khayam in Oregon and, in 1977, took Khayam to Namibia, then known as South-West Africa.

She planned to see if the young cheetah could be taught to hunt for prey as part of research into whether captive cheetahs could be re-introduced into the wild.

But soon after her arrival, she learnt about a more immediate emergency－farmers were poisoning, trapping and shooting huge numbers of cheetahs.

"What I found out is that farmers were killing cheetahs like flies," she said, estimating that 800 or 900 were killed each year at the time.

"Farmers would tell me 'We hate cheetahs. What are you doing with these animals?' They told me to take them all and go away!"