Riana Van Nieuwenhuizen, shares her home with 11 cats – four cheetahs, five lions and two tigers! Wow, What a lady!
The sanctuary worker shares her South African home with not one but FOUR orphaned cheetahs, five lions and two tigers.
Forty-six-year-old Riana said: ‘I love them all. But they’re a handful.’
Riana bought her first cheetah, Fiela in 2006, after realising the big cats were in trouble and heading for extinction with only 1000 left in Africa.
She left her full time job working for the department of justice – a position she had held for 22 years – and found temporary employment on a game ranch where she could raise her beloved big cat.
But Riana’s real dream was fully realised after she set up the not-for-profit Fiela Funds Cheetah Breeding Project in South Africa to ensure the long-term survival of the cheetah and their ecosystem.
