Addis Ababa, Ethiopia – U.S. troops flew two endangered cheetah cubs to the Ethiopian capital Tuesday after instigating their rescue from a remote village where a restaurant owner had held them captive and abused them.
The male and female cubs – whom the soldiers named Scout and Patch – were released on the grounds of the Ethiopian president’s official residence after their 680-mile journey from the eastern hamlet of Gode.
“This is the first kind of rescue of animals, let alone cheetahs, that we have done,” said Sgt. Leah Cobble, 26, of Washington as she cuddled the two purring cubs on the runway of Bole International Airport before handing them to government veterinarian Fekadu Shiferaw.
The saga of the cubs started last month when U.S. counterterrorism troops, carrying out humanitarian work in the Gode region, discovered the animals’ owner was keeping them tied up with ropes around their necks at his restaurant and forcing them to fight each other for the amusement of patrons and village children.
One cub is blind in one eye.
The soldiers alerted the Ethiopian government and a U.S.-based cheetah rescue organization, drawing international attention to the cubs’ plight. They also tried to persuade restaurant owner Mohamed Hudle to hand over the cubs, but he wanted $1,000 for each animal, 10 times the average income in this impoverished nation of 77 million people.
Fekadu, the veterinarian, intervened. He flew to the village Saturday, confiscated the cubs and handed them over to U.S. forces for Tuesday’s transport.
