A photo of an impala being hunted by a group of cheetahs is being shared with a claim that the mother impala has sacrificed herself to protect her two child impalas. The English translation of the posted claim: ‘This is not a painting; this is a real photo. The photo has received the World’s Best Photo Award. In a forest, a group of Cheetahs have surrounded an impala and her two children. Then, the mother impala thought that she can run away but her children cannot. So, she surrendered herself to the Cheetahs and kept looking at her children safely going away. None can be compared to mother’. Let’s try to analyze the claim made in the post.
Claim: Photo of an impala sacrificing herself to cheetahs to protect her children.
Fact: The photographer, who captured the photo, has clarified that the story accompanied by her photo is ‘completely ridiculous fake story’. She said that there were ‘no sacrificed mothers or babies involved’ and also, she shared the real story behind the photo. Hence the claim made in the post is FALSE.
When searched on the internet, it was found that the photographer, who captured the photo, has already posted about the photo on her Facebook account. In her post, she called the viral story, which was accompanied by her photo, as a ‘completely ridiculous fake story’. She has also provided a link to her website in the post.
On her website, the real story behind the photo can be read. She writes, ‘I witnessed this Cheetah kill in September 2013 in the Maasai Mara, Kenya. Narasha, the cheetah mom, was teaching her youngsters how to kill prey. However, they were a bit slow on the uptake and they were playing with the hapless Impala prey instead of killing it. Narasha, the cheetah mom is the one that is grabbing the impala by the neck in all the photos…. What is out of the ordinary in this sequence of photos is how calm the impala is throughout its ordeal. It is probably in shock and thus paralysed with fear.’ On her Instagram, she explicitly clarified that there were ‘no sacrificed mothers or babies involved’.
Also, a video related to the incident was found on YouTube. In the video, it can be seen that there were no child impalas involved in the incident.
The photographer has won the ‘Remarkable Award in the Siena International Photo Awards’ for the posted photo
To sum it up, the photo of an Impala being hunted by cheetahs is being shared with a fake story.
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