Wildlife documentary. Simon King has spent four years helping to raise two orphaned cheetah cubs, Toki and Sambu. Sambu was killed by lions, but Toki survived and Simon has continued with his attempt to return him to the wild. Simon's unique relationship with Toki has enabled him to enter the world of this high-speed hunter and share in Toki's adventures. This is a gritty and honest account of life with one of the world's top predators.
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AnimalsTranscript
00:00This is Toki the cheetah, 43 kilos of muscle, backed up by claws and teeth.
00:30He may be a finely tuned killer, but with me, he's just a big pussycat.
00:42Having earned his complete trust, I've got to be honest, I've developed a very soft spot
00:47for him.
00:48But at times, helping Toki to lead a life in the wild has been very hard indeed for both
00:54of us.
00:56This is his story.
01:06Toki's mother was killed by a lion when he was just four weeks old.
01:10He was found, along with his brother Sambu, and brought to Lewa Wildlife Conservancy in
01:14northern Kenya.
01:15That's where I first met them.
01:18Without human help, the cubs would die.
01:22Toki and Sambu were entirely dependent on us for food and protection.
01:27They soon came to trust me completely, and I grew very attached to the both of them.
01:37as they developed, I helped them with their first hunting lessons too.
01:50Well, it wasn't very long before they could easily outrun me.
01:58We had many adventures together, and by the time they were almost two years old, they were
02:03living a life in the wild and hunting entirely for themselves.
02:13Toki and Sambu grew fit and strong and were completely inseparable as brothers.
02:18Their future looked very bright together.
02:26We always knew that a life in the wild would be dangerous for the cubs, but nothing could
02:30prepare us for what happened in the May of 2004.
02:33Sambu, Toki's brother, was killed by a lion.
02:40I was devastated, but I can't begin to imagine what was going through Toki's mind at the time.
02:49He had lost his one true brother, his ally, and he spent days searching, calling for an
02:54answer that would never be returned.
03:00I decided then that we couldn't simply leave Toki to his fate.
03:12Without his brother, he'd be vulnerable to attack from other predators.
03:15We had to be certain he was able to fend for himself now that he was alone, and so I started
03:20spending time close to his side once again.
03:25I had a huge amount of help from people working on Lewa Conservancy.
03:37Most importantly, Stephen Nangunya.
03:39Stephen had joined us to work with the cheetahs from the time Toki was four months old.
03:44He was wonderfully caring and attentive towards the cats, and now that Toki was alone, Stephen's
03:48care would be more important than ever.
03:56For the first week or so after Sambu's death, we stayed close to Toki day and night.
04:02This close contact undid months of work we'd put in place to encourage Toki to avoid human
04:06beings, but if we'd left him entirely alone, I felt certain his searching and calling would
04:12attract other predators and that he too would be killed.
04:18Over the following weeks, he slowly came to terms with the loss of his brother, but we
04:22still had to be certain he was able to cope with all aspects of life as a solitary male
04:26cheetah.
04:30By tracking him with his radio collar, Stephen and I could keep an eye on Toki while he grew
04:35accustomed to his new circumstances.
04:42Cheetahs are one of the rarest big cats in the world.
04:45There are fewer than 13,000 of them left in the wild.
04:49I felt that the time and effort we put in to try and help Toki survive was well worth it,
04:53especially if some day he found a mate.
05:00One of the hurdles Toki now faced was hunting alone.
05:04In the past, he had Sambu to help him get a meal.
05:06Now it was down to Stephen and me to give him company, and that presented us with a dilemma.
05:13Opportunities for any cheetah are few and far between to catch a meal, and for Toki it seems
05:21life is harder still because wherever he goes at the moment he does still have a human accomplice,
05:31which is for his safety, but also it can be a disadvantage because we show up.
05:39If Toki were to run into trouble with other predators, our being nearby could save his life.
05:46The wild lions, leopards and cheetahs here were nervous of human beings.
06:09Despite his human entourage, Toki soon got to grips with solitary hunting, and he'd lost
06:14none of his speed and precision when it came to the final chase.
06:26Most of the time, his choice of target was spot on, aiming for animals he was certain to
06:30catch once he was committed to the chase, and so guaranteeing a meal.
06:49And once he was well fed, it gave me the chance to get closer to him, to check him over.
07:08It's bonkers, I can sit next to Toki, I can share his shade, and he's perfectly content still.
07:19And here he is, he's an adult male cheetah, three years old, he's big, he can wrestle, impala,
07:26other big animals to the ground, and yet he's still just a pussycat around me.
07:31It's just the most extraordinary privilege.
07:35It was wonderful to be able to sit next to this beautiful wild creature that had become
07:40so much a part of my life, but there were times when being close to Toki had its drawbacks.
07:45He always had a thing for warthogs, despite almost being killed by one when he was four months old.
07:52Now, when he gave chase, he could easily outrun the angry mother,
07:56but that sometimes left Stephen and me in the line of fire and having to make a hasty exit.
08:01Being part of Toki's gang was full of unexpected encounters.
08:17Despite him being three years old now, there were still some things that caught him by surprise.
08:22Mating tortoises didn't make a potential meal, but for Toki, they were essential viewing.
08:29For a few minutes, anyway.
08:40But the serious business of getting a meal was never far from Toki's agenda.
08:49His skills as a hunter had developed with his brother at his side.
08:53Targeting larger prey was one of his greatest challenges now that he had to hunt alone.
08:58He had to be able to learn more about his brother at his side,
08:59by the time he was a young man, saw his brother at his side.
09:00His son had his own family, but he had the sister's family completely.
09:01He died, and he woke up by the time he was a man, but he didn't even know when he was a man.
09:04To his daughter and his father was one of his friends, the one of his friends.
09:05It was his brother and his brother were his son of his father was a man.
09:07It was his douza man who could do a lot of his brother's with his brother that was a man.
09:08The one of his sister was not one of his brother's family, but he wanted to get you to his father's father.
09:09He made another lesson from this early school since he had to be the last time his husband.
09:10He had to be as a man, but he got a man.
09:11He missed much more often than he was successful, and his chases sometimes led him perilously
09:33close to real danger.
09:35There's a lion.
09:37Stephen, do you copy?
09:38There's a lioness really close to us here.
09:41You see where I am?
09:45Yeah, try and lead him away, please, Stephen.
09:49That's great.
09:53We tried to help Toki stay out of harm's way, and here on Lewa there was plenty that could
09:57give a cheater trouble.
10:01Lions were a common threat, and leopards too would make short work of him if they caught
10:07him unawares.
10:11But perhaps surprisingly, it was other cheaters that were the greatest threat to Toki.
10:17Male cheaters sometimes form gangs that are a formidable force against other hopeful males
10:22in the area.
10:23And here, on Lewa, there was just such a coalition.
10:26These three boys were big, confident, and very successful with the ladies.
10:39They were not in the mood to have anyone else join their gang.
10:42In the big cat league, cheaters are relative lightweights, but these boys broke the rules.
10:54They'd often target animals far heavier than themselves.
10:57They're not in the mood to have anyone else.
11:27Their persistence and tactics always paid off in the end.
11:33The gang of three males were always going to be a threat to Toki if they caught up with him.
11:49I suppose we'd hoped that they might just give him a fright, or that, in time, their control
11:54over Lewa would fade, leaving room for Toki to blossom.
11:58But for these males, Toki represented a threat to their sovereignty, a threat that could not be tolerated.
12:04I was working away from Lewa when the attack took place, and Stephen was watching Toki from a distance.
12:18He didn't see the gang coming, until it was too late.
12:22Despite Stephen breaking up the fight, Toki was horribly mauled.
12:39Without immediate help, he would die.
12:43His hind legs had been savaged by two of the males.
12:46His throat had been torn by the third.
12:51Had it not been for the protection of Toki's radio collar, the three males probably would have killed him before Stephen could reach him.
13:00The wounds required instant attention, and the risk of infection made the chances of Toki pulling through all the more amount.
13:07A 24-hour vigil with the whole team at Lewa was put into action.
13:21For the third time in his life, Toki's survival depended absolutely on his extended human family.
13:28With constant care, he slowly regained some of his strength, and his mischievous nature.
13:40A sure sign he was getting better.
13:42The injuries to his legs and throat healed well, though he was clearly very sore, and with so little exercise, he'd become weak.
14:01He continued to receive daily care and antibiotics.
14:07Throughout all of this, I kept in close touch by phone and text messages.
14:12It was so hard to be away from him at this time.
14:24After three weeks, the vet visited once again to check Toki over, and to give his verdict.
14:29At last, I was able to get back to Lewa, and Toki was ready to begin his life back in the wild.
14:48But now we've faced a real dilemma.
14:52If he was ever to stand the chance of finding a mate of his own, it was not going to happen here, whilst the gang of three males ruled the territory.
14:59He was weak after being inactive for so long, and he'd developed a nasty cough.
15:04That's only developed since he was attacked by the three boys, and it's almost certainly because they grabbed his throat, and there's some injury to his trachea, to his throat here.
15:21But he only does it when he purrs, so it's like that old phrase, it only hurts when I laugh.
15:27It's only when he's happy that he gets this.
15:29After much soul-searching and many attempts to let Toki re-establish himself in Lewa, we decided the best chance he had for a life in the wild was to move him somewhere entirely different.
15:41With the help of Ian Craig, the director of Lewa Wildlife Conservancy, we tranquilised him so that he could make the journey to his new home with the minimum amount of stress.
15:50I hated having to do this to him.
15:57I could only hope that it would be worth it.
16:01The flight would take only fifteen minutes, and Toki would know nothing of the trip, but still I felt rotten.
16:08It was as though I'd committed a breach of his trust.
16:10Normally, I love flying over wild Kenya, but all I could think about was how Toki would react when he woke up.
16:32Toki's new home was to be Ol Pejeto Wildlife Conservancy.
16:36A private reserve much like Lewa, but twice the size, and, as far as we knew, with far fewer cheetah already on it.
16:43A huge section of the reserve, close to an abandoned village, had been securely fenced off for rhinos, and we decided this would be the best place for Toki to find his feet.
16:53Even though the tranquilising procedure was tried and tested, I couldn't relax until I was certain Toki was awake and well.
17:01It's a bit nerve-wracking.
17:02Just how he would react to his new home was anyone's guess.
17:11Would he panic?
17:16Maybe he'd hate this new place.
17:18After two hours, he finally managed to stand again.
17:40Almost.
17:41Well, that was a horribly long wait, but he is fine.
17:54If anything, he's almost too independent straight away, because he's immediately trying to check out his surroundings, which is to be expected.
18:00We, at least, can rest easy in the firm knowledge that this 4,000 acres is fenced with predator-proof fencing.
18:10That means he can't get out, but it also means lions and other predators can't get in.
18:14But, you know, it's impossible not to be a little bit nervy when he's out here for the first night.
18:21I know that Stephen's going to stay very, very close to him.
18:25We'll be keeping a check on him throughout the rest of the evening.
18:29It's good to see him back on his feet.
18:30Within a few hours, it was clear that Toki was a very different cat from the nervous animal he'd been recently in Lewa.
18:40Still groggy from the effects of the tranquilizer, he was, nonetheless, sufficiently alert to immediately set about marking this patch as his own,
18:48something he hadn't felt confident enough to do in Lewa since his brother died.
18:53It was a small, but very significant change in his character, and one that made me feel we were on the right track.
19:00The fenced area where Toki now lived was very rich in all forms of wildlife, apart from other predators.
19:26Large herds of zebra, impala, and other antelope shared the plains and bush country.
19:37It gave Toki ample opportunity to hunt and get fit again.
19:41And I was able to back off and leave him to it, watching him from the car most of the time.
19:52They'll see you walking across the plain, so let's leave Toki to make his decision.
20:02My goodness knows what smells must be reaching him.
20:04The wind is blowing from the cover behind me here, straight towards Toki, I guess.
20:09A rich mix of potential meals is coming his way.
20:18And for the time being, at least, we know that not too much danger.
20:24No other predators in this enclosure.
20:284,000 acres for him to find his feet.
20:31It's very weird to watch Toki as though, well, in a way that we should be, which is watching him as a wild cheetah.
20:48But knowing full well that if I get out of the car and say hi to him, he'll be very comfortable with that.
20:53And I've spent so much time, oh, hang on, he's looking down in there.
20:58Definitely looking at Impala down there.
21:11I'm sure he's got something in the bush.
21:13He's in deep cover. Let me just go in.
21:23God, you really have learnt your trade now.
21:45Pick out the youngest animal in the group.
21:48Guaranteed meal.
21:53Now and again, Stephen and I joined Toki as he patrolled the perimeter of this new home, largely to ensure the fence was in good order.
22:02But even though lions and leopards couldn't find their way in, there were one or two neighbours who could still threaten Toki.
22:09Baboons can give a leopard a run for its money, and Toki's confidence in the electric fence for protection was somewhat misplaced.
22:24Point well made.
22:50Point well made.
22:54As long as Toki stayed in the predator-proof area, he'd be relatively safe.
23:01But he'd also never have the chance of meeting any female cheaters.
23:05For that to happen, he'd have to be released into the reserve beyond, and that was still being fenced securely.
23:11After a couple of months, though, it was clear that Toki wanted something more.
23:144,000 acres to explore, and he comes to this one corner to pace up and down.
23:25It may be a big enclosure, but he behaves like a caved animal nonetheless.
23:29And it's that, more than anything else, that convinces me that allowing him out into the major conservancy area is the right decision.
23:44But only when all the fence is as secure as this.
23:48And that was a tall order.
23:52Making 90,000 acres of wilderness completely predator-proof was a huge undertaking, but it was something Old Pejeta Conservancy was prepared to do.
24:01This wasn't just for Toki's sake.
24:05The reserve is bordered by community farmlands.
24:08It was imperative that people and wildlife could live side-by-side without conflict, and that meant preventing most creatures from wandering onto adjacent farms unchecked, Toki included.
24:20The only exception would be in the north, along traditional elephant migration routes.
24:24Along the fence, there are three purpose-built gaps.
24:31This is one of them.
24:35They're here to allow the passage of elephants and other animals in and out of the reserve.
24:40It's very important that these big herbivores have the opportunity to migrate north.
24:44But, of course, if Toki goes out, he'll no longer be in the protection of the reserve, and he'll go straight into other ranching areas and places where people farm with goats and cattle.
24:56And even though we've already tried to spread the word, it is impossible to get the word to absolutely every individual out there.
25:02If Toki left his safe haven into the main reserve, the chance of him walking into trouble through the elephant corridors would remain a worry.
25:13But there were other issues I needed to settle before considering Toki's release, and top of the list was other cheaters.
25:21There'd be no point at all in allowing Toki into a world which was dominated by a coalition of males, like the three boys in Lewa.
25:28It would only be a matter of time before they tracked him down.
25:30But finding any cheaters at all in Olpegeta was proving to be quite a challenge.
25:37I've spent quite a bit of time now out on the plains, and I still haven't encountered a wild cheater.
25:44And that makes me feel better about letting Toki out to roam this area.
25:48He's less likely to bump into a male, which is going to be hostile towards him.
25:52He's also, of course, less likely to bump into a female, which is less good.
25:57Let's just hope that his nose is in good order and he can sniff one out.
26:00Part of the difficulty in finding cheaters here was the habitat.
26:07Much of Olpegeta is covered with thick acacia scrub.
26:10It makes it very hard to spot any predators.
26:15But inevitably, after putting in the hours, something was bound to show up.
26:19It wasn't what I was looking for, but a very rare sight nonetheless.
26:38Jackals don't have the power to subdue a large Grants gazelle fawn quickly.
26:44They have to use teamwork and persistence.
26:47But all the commotion had attracted a far more significant visitor for me.
26:53A cheater, with its eye on an easy meal.
27:02But all the commotion had attracted a far more significant visitor for me.
27:06The cat easily stole the prey from under the jackals' noses, but she wasn't alone.
27:07The cat easily stole the prey from under the jackals' noses, but she wasn't alone.
27:08The cat easily stole the prey from under the jackals' noses, but she wasn't alone.
27:09The cat easily stole the prey from under the jackals' noses, but she wasn't alone.
27:10The cat easily stole the prey from under the jackals' noses, but she wasn't alone.
27:31The cat easily stole the prey from under the jackals' noses, but she wasn't alone.
27:38Two well-grown cubs shared the kill with their mother.
27:42It was a very exciting find for me.
27:53How cool is that?
27:56Mum and two cubs.
27:57And Toki's just 500 metres or so away.
28:01I've no doubt he knows this female is in the area.
28:05Her scent must be everywhere.
28:08It would certainly go some way towards explaining his restless pacing along the fence line.
28:18There was still work to do before we could consider releasing Toki into the main reserve.
28:23But then something happened that was to change our plans completely.
28:27I received a report from Stephen that another cheetah had been spotted walking along the fence outside Toki's enclosure.
28:33The most extraordinary thing is happening this morning.
28:43Toki's still in his enclosure, but there's another cheetah walking on the outside.
28:47Now, all the cheetahs we've encountered so far here in Olpegeto have been incredibly nervous.
28:52This looks like a cheetah that's been hand-reared.
28:54It looks tame, but it's very confused, very young, and it might well be a female.
28:59This could be the most fantastic turn of events.
29:03But we've got to be careful.
29:05Stephen, do you copy me now?
29:11It seemed possible, however unlikely, that someone had released a tame cheetah close to Toki's enclosure,
29:17perhaps hoping we might be able to give it a home.
29:21I assumed this cat was hand-reared and gently approached to see if we could encourage it to join Toki.
29:28Hello, sweetie.
29:29But then, all hell was let loose.
29:34Hello, sweetie. Hello, sweetie.
29:36The attack was unprecedented. Cheetahs just don't do this.
29:41But I still assumed this could be a tame cat in a very bad mood.
29:46Watch your feet, guys.
29:47Just keep back. If she attacks, just kick her, okay?
29:50I've never seen anything like this.
29:55If this is a wild cheetah, I've never had this in my life.
30:02Having spent 20 years watching cheetahs in the wild and the past four years hand-rearing Toki,
30:07I was utterly shocked by this female's behaviour.
30:10It was essential that we kept track of her.
30:14By the time I got to Stephen, she'd launched an attack on him.
30:17In the struggle to get her off Stephen, we were both scratched and bitten.
30:24Get in the car. Get in the car, Stephen.
30:26Get in the car.
30:28Get in the car.
30:33Stephen's been bitten. I've been cut.
30:35I don't know if it's a hand-reared animal or if it's slightly wazzy.
30:43Could you please bring somebody with an immobilising facility?
30:46We're trying to keep a monitor on it now.
30:48Stephen needs medical help.
30:49I want to make sure that we have rabies jabs on Stephen.
30:54ASAP. Copy?
30:56I'm on my way there now.
30:59Affirmative. I'm going to do some first aid on Stephen.
31:02He's fine. He's not going to lose too much blood.
31:05It's a thumb wound, but he got a deep bite.
31:07Fortunately, you haven't hit an artery or anything that's going to make you lose a lot of blood, so you're okay.
31:13But I want to make sure that there's no chance of rabies.
31:16This is like nothing I've ever experienced before.
31:20A wild cheetah, it looks like.
31:24Although, wild cheetahs don't do this.
31:27The irony to all of this is that if this cheetah is healthy and just strange, it actually is a very good mate for Toki.
31:37It's a female cheetah. It's on its own.
31:40But I tell you what, I don't want to meet it too many times.
31:45That one can just have its own life somewhere.
31:49Hey, that's the thing. You get so used to Toki.
31:51Who's just like a big puss cat and then suddenly this comes out at you from nowhere.
32:02While Stephen was taken to hospital, I and the ranger team from Olpegeta tracked the new female into the forest.
32:11Desperately trying to keep an eye on this cheetah at the moment.
32:14Richard Muller from Lewa, who is very experienced with immobilizing animals, is on his way.
32:23He's flying on now.
32:25He's bringing with him a dart gun.
32:27And we're going to try and immobilize her, put her in an enclosure and monitor her.
32:31Just check her. Hopefully she hasn't got rabies and she's just in a bad mood.
32:33I'm not going to go very close to her because I don't trust her.
32:50Within a couple of hours, Richard Muller arrived to tranquilize her.
33:12Only once we had her securely held in an enclosure would we be able to make a plan for her future.
33:17Now we just keep an eye on her, watch her as she falls asleep the moment that she's calm and rested.
33:34We move her into an enclosure and that's where we observe her for the next few weeks.
33:39If she has got rabies, we'll know soon enough.
33:41The chances of me encountering a cheetah with rabies were incredibly small.
33:47But the disease is transmitted through bites and scratches and we had to take the risk seriously.
33:52Once the infection sets in, it's almost always fatal.
33:55She's recovered from the immobilizing drugs, had a night in the cage. She should be right as rain.
34:08She isn't. She isn't. She's frothing from the mouth. Behaving erratically, falling over.
34:17And I fear she has rabies. She has rabies.
34:36rabies. What a tragedy. For a minute it looked as though the most extraordinary good fortune
34:51for Toki had arrived. Now all I can feel is absolute sadness, empathy for this poor animal.
35:03So thank goodness Stephen went straight in and had his jabs. I'm going to go in and get
35:08mine boosted in a minute. And as far as she's concerned, oh. There was absolutely nothing
35:20I could do to help and she died soon after. Test showed that rabies was indeed her killer.
35:32We focused our attention 100% back on Toki and his release into the reserve. The fence
35:38was now ready, but before exposing him to the risk of contact with rabies, we gave him
35:43a vaccine. It's such a simple procedure, and if domestic dogs all over East Africa received
35:49this vaccine, it's likely that rabies could be kept under control. But it's a matter of
35:54finding the resources. With the chance of a new mate joining Toki in his enclosure now dashed,
36:00he decided it was time to let him go looking for himself. Gosh, it's nice to meet a cheetah
36:05again that doesn't try and kill you. This is it. This is the morning we're going to release
36:14him from the holding pen. And to tell you the truth, I'm ****ing myself. Oh dear. You shouldn't
36:25get this emotionally attached to an animal. Given the events of recent weeks and the thought
36:31that Toki would be facing so many dangers in the reserve, I had serious doubts that we were
36:36doing the right thing, but he had a right to a life in the wild, and that was what we were
36:40about to offer him. I'm terrified. I can hardly bear this. Toki's just coming along around the
36:50fence.
36:51Here he comes. Come on fella, this is your day.
37:18Good boy. He's out. This is the beginning of the rest of his life. He's got a different
37:39attitude. A bit more nervous. Can you blame him? The plan was to walk with Toki into the
37:50very heart of the reserve, and then to let him choose his course, all the time keeping
37:55tabs on him using his radio collar. We're trying to stick to bush country for this first day
38:02out with Toki. And that's for good reason. We do want to lead him to the plains eventually,
38:12but he'll walk further and probably stay closer if there's thick cover. And I find it incredibly
38:19touching that an animal that has been wild for four years now, looking after himself, still
38:29a little bit more. He's happy, indeed, content to stay with us and to follow us into this
38:37new territory. It's a fantastic trust that he puts in us. What is obvious is that Toki's
38:48quite nervous at the moment. He's sticking closer and closer to us. He must be bombarded with new
38:58smells, many of them disconcerting, quite probably from other cheetahs, lion, leopard.
39:05But once he reached the plains, he was a different animal. I'd never seen him looking so strong
39:14and confident. It was as though he'd lived here all his life. Soon, he was staking his claim
39:32to this, his new territory.
39:39But I had annoying doubt. Even though Olpegeta was vast, there were those narrow elephant corridors
39:46in the fence that could lead to an area that was terribly dangerous if Toki wandered there.
39:53The community lands to the north were known to harbour poachers, and cheetahs can easily
39:58be killed by a human hunter and his dogs.
40:09Despite everything looking good, I felt we still had to keep a close eye on Toki, just to be sure
40:14he settled properly into his new home.
40:27For now, at least, we could enjoy the sight of this cat we knew so well, looking happy,
40:33relaxed, and in command of his world.
40:47Finding Toki each morning by the signal from his radio collar always made me nervous.
40:52But it seemed that he was going from strength to strength.
41:00He was tackling large prey and looking increasingly fit and confident.
41:10It's Toki's second day, that's all, out into the reserve.
41:15Already he's had one meal yesterday morning, he's got himself a really good meal this morning.
41:23He's doing what he should do.
41:24He's wandering great distances during the course of the night.
41:28He's being a wild cheetah.
41:33And in a way, I should start to just let go now.
41:36This is when I should start to say, okay, boy, this is your place.
41:39Enjoy it and make the most of it.
41:47And I really don't want to let go.
41:49I don't want to leave him to his fate completely.
41:58Weird, strange.
41:59I should, I should be cutting away.
42:01But you know, I've never been this close to any animal, a domestic animal or otherwise.
42:06I've never had this emotional engagement at this level.
42:14And it's very strange.
42:19It's hard to let go.
42:20It really is.
42:21But I've got to.
42:25Hmm.
42:29After almost a week living entirely free, there was a worrying shift in Toki's behaviour.
42:34He started to skulk from one patch of bush to the next and covered open ground at a nervous trot.
42:49I guessed that he had caught the scent of another male cheetah and given his experience in the past,
42:54he wanted to put distance between himself and any potential threat.
43:04Apart from watching him by day, there was nothing more we could do but hope that he found an area of the reserve where he felt comfortable again.
43:10A little more than a week after releasing Toki into the reserve, we set out at dawn as usual to track him.
43:20No signal from Toki's radio collar.
43:25And it's now that you really appreciate how big Ol Pejeta is and how much of it is covered by very dense bush country, which makes it hard to radio track an animal.
43:36What we do know is that he's not in the same place as we left him last night.
43:43He's moved.
43:45How far he's moved and in what direction, that's just about anybody's guess.
43:50Now we start the search.
43:55With every passing minute and no signal from Toki's collar, I had an increasing sense of dread.
44:05I couldn't help remembering that awful morning we found Sambu, Toki's brother, dead under very similar circumstances.
44:11Worse still, we found cheetah tracks crossing one of the elephant corridors.
44:21It could have been any wild cheetah, but it could have been Toki.
44:25We couldn't take any chances. The aeroplane was scrambled.
44:29We needed the height to try and get a signal from his collar.
44:42For miles, nothing.
44:45Then, nearly 20 kilometers north of the reserve in an area where poaching was rife and men with spears guarding their goats farmed the country, we got a signal.
44:55We couldn't be sure if Toki was alive or dead.
45:00With nowhere to land the plane close by, we had to return to the cars and make the journey overland to try and reach Toki.
45:07Hopefully before anyone else did.
45:12It was a journey that would take only half an hour.
45:15But it was the longest half an hour of my life.
45:24There are dogs everywhere, people everywhere, spears, bows, arrows.
45:28We don't get to him soon.
45:33That's the end of him.
45:34That's it. We're out of the reserve.
45:44We're going left.
45:48Hopefully we get there before anybody else does.
45:52See, those are the spears we don't want.
45:55And the bows and the arrows and the rungas and the very things that'll be the death of him.
45:58I couldn't blame a farmer for killing Toki to protect his herds of goats or sheep.
46:08I'd only blame myself for letting it happen.
46:10The signal from the collar was very strong now, but it wasn't moving.
46:20I could only fear the worst.
46:22Just...
46:32Oh, God, Toki.
46:34What, Toki?
46:35What, Toki?
47:04What, Toki?
47:09Perhaps if I left Toki to his own devices, he'd avoid the poachers and the goat herders and, in time, find a mate here.
47:16Perhaps.
47:18But almost certainly not.
47:21I made a commitment four years ago to raise him from a cub, to give him the chance of a life in the wild.
47:26But I also took on the responsibility of trying to ensure his well-being.
47:30I cared for him too much to abandon him here.
47:36Toki followed us back to Olpegeta and the safety of the Rhine reserve.
47:41He's there to this day.
47:47It's not the ending I'd hoped for, but then, this isn't the end for Toki.
47:54His life has had its hurdles, but there's always hope.
47:57We continue to work towards him finding a mate, and, thanks to Toki, we're helping to set up a cheetah conservation project in Kenya.
48:06For now, though, he is safe, healthy, but alone.
48:11Next week, Natural World investigates the crisis facing India's tigers, and reveals why the world's largest cat is proving so hard to save from extinction.
48:32It's an intriguing tale of scientists turned whistleblowers taking on criminal poaching gangs.
48:42Tigers have come back from the brink before, but can they do so again?
48:46And the brand-new series of Natural World continues on Wednesday night at nine, here on BBC Two.
48:54.
48:55.
48:56.