News and Stories

The Cincinnati Zoo’s Director, Thane Maynard and Savanna the 4-month-old cheetah, will appear on the NBC Today Show in New York, NY (local WLWT) tomorrow morning, Thursday, November 8 at approximately 7:30 a.m. The Zoo will be Live Tweeting Savanna’s journey to the Big Apple on Twitter. Follow along @cincinnatizoo #cheetahNYC.

The Cincinnati Zoo partnered with National Geographic Magazine to capture the first-ever slow motion, high definition video of a cheetah running. The footage can be seen in the November iPad and iPhone editions of National Geographic Magazine. During the shoot, Sarah, the Zoo’s eldest cheetah, broke the land speed record—racing 100 meters in 5.95 seconds!

The Zoo’s next sprinter in training, Savanna, was born at the Zoo’s off-site cheetah breeding facility during the film shoot. She will start running for the public, small distances, next spring in the Cincinnati Zoo’s Cheetah Encounter.

National Geographic Magazine approached the Cincinnati Zoo because it is a leader in cheetah conservation and is one of only 4 facilities in the US that has a cheetah breeding facility.

Interesting facts about the shoot:
• The high definition digital cinema camera that was used to capture these never-before-seen shots had a speed of 1,200 frames/second.
• The brightest continuous lights in the world were used: 150,000 watts for an 8-second burst.
• The Magazine literally set up a “movie” set with 25 crew members from Hollywood action films (many said this was their most challenging project!)
• The shoot lasted 3 days, using 5 of the Cincinnati Zoo’s cheetahs- they shot very early in the morning and in the evening, allowing the cheetahs to rest during the hottest points in the day.

Behind the scenes videos and stills of the shoot are available by request.