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Did this impala give up its life to save its babies when cheetahs attacked? Truth behind old pic going viral again
The picture of two cheetahs attacking an impala is being shared with a false claim.
An old picture of two cheetahs attacking an impala has resurfaced online and is going viral. The picture shows the prey standing still while the predators attack it. What is striking in the image is the impala’s reaction to the attack. The pic is going viral with the narrative that the unperturbed reaction of the animal is due to the fact that it was trying to save its family. In the post, it is also claimed that the photographer who captured the picture soon went into depression. Both the claims regarding the picture are false.
Claim: “This picture is considered one of the best pictures in the last ten years because it made its owner ((the photographer)) in a state of depression: The story says: these two cheetahs attacked the gazelle at a time when it was playing with its young children, and that the deer had an opportunity to escape, and the distance and saving her life were in her favour, but she decided to surrender herself to the cheetahs in this way. Why?? To give her youngsters a chance to escape...because if she ran away first, there wouldn't be much time for her babies to escape. The picture is the last moment of the mother with her throat in the mouth of the cheetah, as she looks firmly to make sure that her young escaped safely before they were prey. A mother is the only person in the world who can give her life for you for nothing. Remember her, even with a prayer, may Allah have mercy on our mothers,” wrote a Facebook user while sharing the picture.
Take a look at the post:
Investigation: The first thing we did is conduct a reserve image search for the picture shared on Facebook. It led us to a post shared by photographer Alison Buttigieg who originally captured the picture. In her post, she debunked both the claims.
“My Stranglehold photo went viral with a completely ridiculous fake story accompanying it, and implications I fell into depression after I took it (seriously who comes up with this crap?!?) - not to mention the gross copyright violations. Sensationalism at its best - complete fiction so that people get more likes on their page. The photo with the fake story has been shared hundreds of thousands of times on various social media. I am getting inundated by hundreds and hundreds of messages asking me whether I am the “depressed photographer”. I have been tagged in LinkedIn with the fake story - that’s going to do wonders for my career. What a vile world we live in, full of stupid gullible people spreading #fakenews like crazy,” she wrote. She also shared a blog link that details the story behind the picture.
In the blog, she shared that she captured the image back in 2013 in Maasai Mara, Kenya. The impala was killed when a cheetah mom was teaching her young ones how to hunt.
So the claims that the impala was trying to protect its family during the cheetah attack or that the photographer went into depression are both false.
