Common Name: Cheetah
Scientific Name: Acinonyx jubatus subfamily Felinae
IUCN Red List Status: Vulnerable
Current Population Trend: Decreasing
Less than 7000 of the big cats remain in the wild, spurring conservationists to call for the species to be declared endangered.
Type: Mammals
Cheetahs are divided into four subspecies; the Southeast African Cheetah, the Northeast African Cheetah, the Northwest African Cheetah, and the rare Asiatic Cheetah. African and Asiatic Cheetahs diverged about 67,000 years ago with each evolving differently. Asiatic cheetahs have seen their numbers dwindle considerably. With just four subspecies left, the cheetah genetic pool lacks the diversity. This lack of diversity has weakened the cheetah making it vulnerable to diseases that reduce their numbers.
Prey: Small to medium-sized prey weighing mostly below 40 kg (88 lb), prefers medium-sized ungulates such as impala, springbok and Thomsons gazelles. The cheetah will typically stalk its prey to within 60–70 m, charge towards it, trip it during the chase and bite its throat to suffocate it to death.
Life Span: In the wild 10 to 12 years
In captivity 20 years or longer. Cub mortality is extremely high for the species in both the wild and captivity.
Size: 3.5 to 4.5 feet; tail: 25.5 to 31.5 inches
Weight: 77 to 150 pounds
Top speed: From 0 to 60 miles an hour in only three seconds.
Cheetahs are the world's fastest land mammal. They can accelerate from 0 to 60 miles an hour in only three seconds, striking prey in the blink of an eye.
Habitat: Eastern Africa, Southern Africa, and parts of Iran. They prefer open bushy areas which provide cover to stalk their prey.
Gestation Period: Three months, three to five cubs. Breeding occurs throughout the year. Cheetah cubs are highly vulnerable to predation by other large carnivores such as hyenas and lions. Weaning happens at around four months and cubs are independent by around 20 months. Mating usually doesn't take place until the age of 3 years. The cheetah is the most reproductive of all cats.
Social System: Female Cheetahs are solitary animals except when rearing a litter. Mothers with cubs will usually stay within close proximity of one another. Females only come in contact with other Cheetahs in order to mate. More gregarious than many other cats, the cheetah has three main social groups—females and their cubs, male 'coalitions' and solitary males. While females lead a nomadic life searching for prey in large home ranges, males are more sedentary and may instead establish much smaller territories in areas with plentiful prey and access to females. The cheetah is active mainly during the day and hunting is the major activity, with peaks during dawn and dusk.
Cheetahs are the only big cats that can’t roar. They produce a variety of sounds including growls, purrs that generally show contentment, chirps (between a mother and her cubs). Cheetahs meow like a house cat and also have an "explosive yelp" that can be heard by humans from 2 km away.
Cause of Decline: A century ago, there were more than 100,000 cheetahs that roamed the African and Asian continent. That number has since been decimated to extremely low figures. The African cheetah has largest numbers. The dwindling numbers of the cheetah is the direct result of the ever diminishing native habitat and ecosystem and the effects of climate change, game hunting, farming and poaching for their skin and other body parts. Other threats include high demand for cheetah cubs as pets, mainly in the Middle East, which results in the illegal trade of cubs
Cheetahs originally evolved from mountain lions in North America. About 100,000 years ago, and migrated from North America across the Beringian Land Bridge to Asia and then into Europe and Africa.
About 10,000 to 12,000 years ago, at the end of the last ice age, an extinction event took place. The cheetah species in North America and Europe became extinct, leaving only the Asian and African species of cheetahs. Since then, stress from climate change, habitat loss, and human activities have put pressure on the remaining two species. Today, one cheetah species is found in eastern, central, and south western Africa, while a tiny population of the other species, the Asiatic Cheetah, is found in Iran. Scientists estimate that less than 7000 African Cheetahs are living in the wild, and there may be less than 50 Asian Cheetahs left in the world.
The African cheetah lives in dry and shrub forests and Savannah with the largest populations occurring in South-Western Angola, Botswana, Malawi, South-Western Mozambique, Namibia, Northern Mozambique, Northern South Africa, Southern Zambia, and Zimbabwe. A diminishing population occurs in the horn of African countries like Kenya, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Uganda. The lowest population is in the Sahara in Northern and Western Africa. Most numbers of wild cheetahs are now only found in eastern and south western Africa. These populations are under pressure as the wide-open grasslands they favour are disappearing at the hands of human settlers and climate change.
The Asian cheetah previously occurred widely in Asia from the Mediterranean and the Arabian Peninsula in the west, India in the east, and the Caspian and Aral Seas in the North. Unfortunately, the population has diminished from the majority of its historic range and now occurs in Iran and few areas in Afghanistan, India, and Turkmenistan. The animal became extinct in Europe.
Genetic analysis of wild cheetahs shows that they have survived at least two bottleneck events. In biology, a bottleneck event occurs when something happens to sharply reduce the size of the population.
The first “Genetic Bottleneck” event that cheetahs underwent occurred around 100,000 years ago when cheetahs expanded their range into Asia, Europe, and Africa. This range expansion took place rapidly, spreading out cheetahs over a very large area. Because the cheetah populations were spread out across the continents, they were isolated from one another, unable to exchange genes. This first bottleneck event affected the populations of cheetahs. Over the next 90,000 years, their gene pools expanded as the populations grew to a large size and expanding quickly with the offspring retaining about 95% of their genetic variability.
They went through a second "Genetic Bottleneck", and their genetic diversity plummeted. They survived only through brother-to-sister or parent-to-child mating.
This event occurred about 10,000 to 12,000 years ago, around the time of extinction of North America and Europe cheetahs. Large mammals died out across the world and the number of cheetahs was catastrophically reduced. The current theory is that they became inbred when a "natural" disaster dropped their total world population down to less than seven individual cheetahs. Cheetahs have almost zero genetic variability - there's hardly any difference between them.*
African cheetahs survived this bottleneck event even though the population of cheetahs grew into the hundreds of thousands by the 19th century their genetic variability remained low due to the extreme bottleneck event that took place thousands of years previously.
Cheetahs are an endangered species tethering on the edge of extinction. Will they survive and outrun this new wave of threats to their survival? Encroachment by humans for industrial and agricultural expansion has greatly affected their habitat. They are killed by game hunters who view the animals as predators alongside farmers wanting to protect their livestock from cheetah attacks. There is interference of the animals’ natural activities in areas where human development borders the wild; they become victims of vehicles passing through their habitat. Many countries in Asia and Africa have invested in programs aimed at conservation of the cheetah. The main goal of the conservation programs is to manage lands and reduced the scattering populations of cheetahs, giving corridors and more territory for them to safely hunt and roam.
* According to the enzymes, humans rate at about 70% identical. But laboratory rats and cheetahs rate at 97% identical. Laboratory rats have been inbred for at least 20 generations of brother-to-sister mating. So cheetahs are at least as inbred as laboratory rats. Cheetahs will accept skin grafts from each other, and not reject the graft, about 50% of the time. This means cheetahs must all be genetically similar to each other.
SOME ORGANIZATIONS WORKING FOR CHEETAH CONSERVATION IN THE WILD
The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) supports Asiatic Cheetah conservation
Australia Zoo Wildlife Warriors assist the efforts of EWT's crucial program in securing the future for cheetah conservation.
Panthera’s Cheetah Program seeks to secure vast tracts of land, safe passage, and an abundance of prey for Africa’s most threatened big cat.
African Wildlife Foundation is committed to building a future where wildlife and wild lands are a cultural and economic asset for Africa.
Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES)
WWF
National Geographic