Cheetah

Yesterday for the first time in a month the 3 sisters were on exhibit together after Tika recovered from a scratch on her leg.
Emma was out with them for only one day after keepers realized she could get into some of the trees. Trees have been trimmed but she will not be out again until some protection is put around the ones that might enable her to get out of the exhibit.
Cheetahs don\'t normally climb, but Emma likes to.
After she is out again Mahala will join them, so we may soon see 5 females on exhibit at once.

Our zoo is just weird. Only males live in coalitions. Females only live with their cubs. If we want breeding shouldn't we be replicating wild conditions? Other zoos don't leave all their females together.

That's funny. They never thought they would have to worry about a tree climbing cheetah when they designed the exhibit and planted trees.

I hate fencing around the trees. Makes things look too fake.

TZFan is right. Having all the females together it weird. Although I remember one of the Keepers saying that having the males on exhibit seemed to stress them out. Hence the multiple females.

These females are related (mother and daughters, sisters) and several, if not all of them have been together before. The keepers say they are all quite tame.
Emma is the oldest, mother of two of the others and sister of another and quite dominant. The day she was put in with the three sisters she was already keeping them in order, according to a keeper.

Mahala would be the one who wasn't familiar with anyone to start. Like you said, Emma is the mother of Tika and Akeelah (though from different litters) and Cleo is the girls half sister who they probably encountered at African Lion Safari.

I would rather see the zoo concentrate its efforts on breeding then creating a female coalition which would just be broken up if anyone got pregnant. Unfortunately options are limited there. Rafiki can be bred to Emma and Mahala. Patonga to Emma and Mahala. Bomani to Cleo. And sadly because of his age AI is the only option for Zeke but he is the one who can breed with everyone.