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I witnessed this Cheetah kill in September 2013 in the Maasai Mara, Kenya.  Narasha, the cheetah mom, was teaching her youngsters how to kill prey.  However they were a bit slow on the uptake and they were playing with the hapless Impala prey instead of killing it. Narasha, the cheetah mom is the one that is grabbing the impala by the neck in all the photos.   The youngsters practice some skills like pouncing and tripping which they get right, but they cannot seem to be able to get how to strangle the impala effectively.

What is out of the ordinary about this sequence of photos is how calm the impala is throughout its ordeal.  After reviewing photos in detail and speaking to experts we concluded that the impala is probably in shock, as it seems to have already been attacked before we arrived on the scene, and thus is paralysed with fear - so it is not struggling and also looks somewhat stiff.  The defiance in its eyes are in stark contrast with its lack of interest in self-preservation.  This allowed me to get unique pictures of a kill that are seemingly choreographed in their grace.  I wanted the viewer to sympathize with the impala, and at the same time witness with me the disturbing nature of this unusual kill. I have to admit it was difficult to watch but this is the way of nature, which keeps everything perfectly in balance so that the majority keep thriving.

In the end, after what seemed like an interminable eternity (but it was just a few minutes), the cheetah mom put the impala out of its misery, and the cats got to enjoy a nice meal. Cheetahs are endangered with their numbers plummeting, and every single meal and every single cub raised to adulthood is immensely precious.

PS: This image often gets stolen and accompanied by a bombastic fake story on social media, manipulating people to elicit clicks and likes. This is the real story, straight from the person who photographed it. The backstory is definitely not as dramatic and heart-wrenching as the invented one going round on social media but it is based on fact.