Simon King was attacked by a six-stone female cheetah and suffered a gashed and bloodied arm, as he was filming his new show, Toki\'s Tale, in Kenya.

Both he and assistant Stephen Nangunye were bitten and scratched during the attack but were not badly hurt.

The men were given rabies jabs after the incident in the summer of 2006. The wild cheetah later died of the disease.

"Having spent 20 years watching cheetahs in the wild, I was utterly shocked by this female's behaviour," he said.

"It was desperately sad that such a beautiful animal should succumb to such a deadly virus.

"I, meanwhile, am fine. Seven jabs later, I should be able to bathe in the rabies virus without being infected."

[URL=http://www.bbc.co.uk/somerset/content/articles/2007/03/22/simon_king_cheetah_attack_feature.shtml]BBC story & film link[/URL]
- Edited by kipper on 06.05.2007, 10:03 -

maybe the cheetah is too weak to fight the disease based on the vulnerability because of narrow genpool.
have never heard before.....
thanks kipper for posting the article.

Rabies has been around wild animals for decades. Many animals can contract it. In Namibia, outbreak of rabies in kudu is a common and yearly thing causing thousands of deaths throughout the country. It doesn't make the kudu aggressive as one would associate with the disease. cheetah suffer as well. jackals die in their thousands from it too. Its more common then we think.