“They’re coming to us in pretty bad shape,” Cairns said, as a group of teenage cheetahs stood in the shade of an enclosure behind him. “Normally, they are malnourished and dehydrated.” About 300 cheetahs are trafficked through Somaliland each year, according to the Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF), making it a global hub for animal smuggling. All of the cheetahs in Cairns’ care at CCF “safe houses” were seized by traffickers who planned to ship them, via Yemen, to wealthy Gulf countries such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates
