National Geographic hasn’t paid one million dollars for this video of a woman taming Cheetahs - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
July 16, 2021
A video showing a woman taming a group of cheetahs is being shared on social media with a claim that the National Geographic channel has paid one million dollars for this video. This post claim that the footage was captured at the Kruger National Park in South Africa. Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: National Geographic channel has paid one million dollars for the footage of a woman taming cheetahs.
Fact: This video shows Namibian wildlife conservationist Marlice Van Vuuren, teasing her pet cheetahs at the ‘Naankuse wildlife sanctuary’ in Namibia, Africa. This video was shared on different websites at least since 2010. It is nowhere reported that the National Geographic channel had paid one million dollars for this video. Earlier, clips from several films were shared with a similar claim on social media. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
On reverse image search of the video shared in the post, a similar video was found published on the ‘Dainik Bhaskar’ YouTube channel in 2015.  This video reported it as the visuals of Marlice Van der Merve teasing her pet cheetahs. This video was found circulating on social media at least since September 2010. A user shared the same video by mentioning Marlice Van der Merve as an animal conservationist from Namibia, Africa.
When we searched for further details using these keywords, we found several news websites publishing the same visuals on their articles. They can be seen here and here. These articles reported it as the visuals of Namibian wildlife conservationist Marlice Van Vuuren teasing her pet cheetahs.  According to the news reports, Marlice Van Vuuren and her husband Dr. Rudie Van Vuuren together run the ‘Naankuse wildlife sanctuary’ in Namibia, Africa. Marlice has been working with animals in film productions since the age of 13 and she worked for several well-known movies. The other videos of Marlice Van Vuuren teasing her pet animals can be seen here and here.
The National Geographic Channel took the interview of both Marlice Van Vuuren and her husband Dr. Rudie Van Vuuren in 2019. In the interview, it is nowhere mentioned that her footage with her pet cheetahs was sold for 1 million dollars to the National Geographic channel. Also, this video was not published on the ‘The National Geographic Channel’. The National Geographic channel has published two videos about Marlice Van Vuuren’s wildlife sanctuary. They can be seen here and here. The video shared in the post was not published on the ‘The National Geographic’s YouTube channel. If the National Geographic channel had bought this video for 1 million dollars, they would have published this video on their YouTube channel or on their official website.
Earlier, when video clips from different films shared with a similar claim, FACTLY published fact-check articles. They can be seen here and here.
To sum it up, the National Geographic channel hasn’t paid one million dollars for this footage of a woman taming cheetahs.