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Alyssa Gruber

4/18/22

ENVL 3121

Cheetah Conservation and Management

Summary

The cheetah or Acinoyx Jubatus, is remembered by all as the fastest land animal alive.

They can reach speeds up to one hundred and three kilometers per hour (or 64 miles per hour) for

short distances. Yet, the cheetah is unable to outrun all its problems, landing it a vulnerable

listing under the ICUN red list (Cheetah | Official Website of UN World Wildlife Day, 2022). Not

only are cheetah population numbers decreasing, but their historical ranges are also as well.

Today, cheetahs can be found in 23 countries in Africa and a single population of about 50

individuals has persisted in Central Iran (Cheetah, 2022). There are multiple threats to cheetahs

today. Some of the main threats that cheetahs face today are being targeted by farmers for

livestock depredation, a loss of resources including food and land due to human activity, illegal

poaching, and a high cub mortality rate.

Finding solutions for these challenges is difficult. Some considerations that need to be

taken into account are the cheetah’s natural habitat range, their diet, their relationships with other

species, and how human perception affects cheetahs. It is also important to consider the points of

view from the stakeholders involved. Different stakeholders have very different opinions on

cheetah management. For example, local farmers only support cheetah conservation within

protected areas (Selebatso et al., 2008). On the other side of the spectrum, groups like the
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Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF) believe that cheetah populations are too low, and they all

must be saved (Cheetah Conservation Fund, 2020). There are programs in place that are designed

to manage wild cheetah populations. Some of these programs include the Range Wide

Conservation Program for Cheetah and African Wild Dog (RWCP) and the SSC Cat Specialist

Group (Cheetah | Official Website of UN World Wildlife Day, 2022).

Challenges

There are numerous threats to current cheetah populations. The first threat to cheetah

management is human-wildlife conflict. Cheetahs have large spatial requirements for habitats

and can occupy a wide array of habitats (Selebatso et al., 2008). Most of their required habitats;

about 76%, lie outside of protected areas, leading to increased number on conflicts with local

farmers and ranchers (Cheetah | Official Website of UN World Wildlife Day, 2022). Local

farmers have low tolerance for cheetahs due to livestock depredation. Many farmers in Botswana

were upset with the government for not helping them with issues regarding cheetahs and

livestock predation. In Botswana, the Department of Wildlife and National Parks has a

compensation plan put into place to compensate local farmers for livestock killed by predators.

However, since cheetahs were listed as not dangerous under the Botswana Wildlife Conservation

and National Parks Act No. 28 of 1992, farmers received no financial compensation for livestock

killed due to cheetahs (Selebasto et al, 2008). This has led to retaliatory killings of cheetahs from

upset farmers.

Organizations like the Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF) are trying to use holistic

methods instead of lethal methods in reducing human-cheetah conflict. Some ways they are

doing this is by through their livestock guarding dog program (LGD). Since the program began
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in 1994, the CCF has placed over 650 dogs on farms throughout Africa (Cheetah Conservation

Fund, 2022). The organization also hosts multiple educational outreach programs to local schools

and farmers about cheetah conservation. Another organization that works for cheetah

conservation is Africat. Africat has several different management strategies that they recommend

to local farmers. They promote the use of electric fencing and are doing research into making it

portable for farmers as to not disturb grazing. Africat is also promoting educational outreach to

farmers about preventative livestock farming and management which includes penning young

animals inside at night (Nowell, 1996). The challenges with this issue are the fact that most of

the required habitat for cheetahs falls onto unprotected lands. Cheetahs have large ranges and

live in low densities within that range, so it is estimated that they require over 10,000 km2 of

open space (Threats, 2022). The problem is that most of this suitable habitat falls onto

unprotected areas rather than protected areas.

Increased levels of human and cheetah conflict stems from another major threat to current

cheetah populations; habitat destruction due to human development. Cheetahs have been driven

out of 91% of their historic range within Africa and parts of Asia. Today they can be found in 23

countries in Africa with six countries containing over half of the remaining population. A single

population containing 50 or less cheetahs can be found persisting in Central Iran (A Brief

History of Cheetah Conservation, 2018). As human populations continue to increase, so does the

need for land to support cattle, which in turn supply people with food and money. The problem

with increased cattle is the increase of overgrazing on the savannah landscape. Excessive

overgrazing of cattle has started the process of desertification. For cheetahs, this desertification

comes in the form of bush encroachment. Native species like senegalia increase in number and

eventually take over the land. This is a problem for cheetahs who prefer wide open landscapes
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for hunting. Bush encroachment limits their eyesight and hinders their movement for hunting

(Marker, 2018).

Humans depend on land for cattle and the cattle to feed them. When humans change the

cheetah’s natural home range they are forced to move elsewhere; it just so happens that

elsewhere is right on their rangelands. That is why it is so important to focus more effort and

research on protecting and restoring cheetah habitat. Without suitable habitats for cheetahs to

live in so they are not wandering onto human property, reintroduction efforts are facing a losing

battle. Cheetahs depend upon large and open spaces for them to effectively hunt their prey. This

includes stopping the spread of bush encroachment onto protected areas. A potential solution

may be turn unprotected farmlands into unsuitable conditions for cheetahs by allowing an

overabundance of shrubs to grow. Then the farmers could turn to more nomadic practices of

moving every few months so that the land has time to reset, and cheetahs can come back in when

the herds are not there. At the same time, creating more suitable cheetah habitat inside of

protected areas.

Another threat that cheetahs face is illegal poaching and trapping. Cheetahs are most

often smuggled and poached for the illegal pet trade and for their pelts. For thousands of years,

cheetahs have been kept as pets and hunting companions by the wealthy throughout parts of the

world including Africa, India, and the Middle East (A Brief History of Cheetah Conservation,

2018). The illegal wildlife trade is a prosperous one, with estimates ranging between an

estimated $7 billion to $23 billion. For cheetah smuggling, the U.S. is a popular destination as a

live cheetah can go for $15,000 compared to $200-$300 in Africa (Tricorache et al, 2018). In the

past, there was much more support on keeping exotic animals as pets. In the 1930s, French

entertainer Josephine Baker was well known for her pet cheetah named Chiquita. The two were
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often seen taking a stroll together, riding in the car, and Chiquita would also sometimes be a part

of Baker’s performances on stage. The glorification of keeping cheetahs as pets undermines one

thing; they do not make good pets. Cheetahs require copious amounts of space for exercise and

need to be fed a proper diet. Improper care can lead to a slew of health problems including ataxia

(a degenerative nervous system disease) and hind-limb paralysis (Tricorche et al, 2018).

Cheetahs are also poached for their pelts and other body parts. All around the world, pelts and

other body parts are sold for economic gain and for status. The challenges with this issue are that

the benefits of the illegal wildlife trade outweigh the potential costs. It is my opinion that illegal

poaching will not stop until we can make the potential consequences outweigh the potential

benefits. To do this we need to educate people as to why cheetahs and other wildlife do not make

good pets and hopefully decreasing the demand for them. Stricter enforcement and monitoring of

illegal wildlife trade is also critical if we want to stop illegal poachers.

A final issue that the cheetah is facing is that cheetah cubs have a high mortality rate. Out

of all the cheetahs in the world, only about 5% of them make it to adulthood (Cheetah, 2022).

This is since cheetahs must contend with other sympatric predators like lions, leopards, and

hyenas. Lions and hyenas are responsible for about 73% of total cub mortality (Broekhuis et al,

2013). Cheetahs tend to avoid areas where these predators live because their smaller stature and

natural timid behavior does not allow them to effectively compete with these larger predators.

Cheetahs are often driven away from their own kills by larger predators, so they need to make

even more kills just to get enough food, which is a great expenditure of energy that can be used

for other purposes like reproduction. The fact is that predators like lions and hyenas are more

abundantly found in protected areas, forcing cheetahs out into non protected areas to hunt. These
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interactions between sympatric predators have led to an increase in the number of human-

cheetah interactions.

Cheetahs also have higher mortality rates than other felids due to their genetics. Cheetahs

have higher levels of homozygosity that scientists believe to be from two bottleneck effects from

around 100,000 years ago to another one being about 12,000 years ago (O’Brien et al, 2017).

This has led to increased inbreeding and therefore reducing their genetic diversity within the

population. A low genetic diversity has made them more susceptible to diseases than other felids

like Feline Coronavirus (FCoV) and anthrax. FCoV causes feline infectious peritonitis (FIP)

which is a viral infection where the immune system produces virus-immunoglobin deposits into

the peritneoum which can cause organ failure (O’Brien et el, 2017). This seems to affect captive

cheetahs more than it does wild cheetahs. In a breeding facility of 45 individuals, within six

months all the cheetahs tested positive for FCoV and within three years, about 60% of them had

died. It was noted to be the most devastating case of FCoV and further testing revealed that the

FeCV strain had adapted and evaded their immune systems (O’Brien et al, 2017).

Anthrax has been seen in wild cheetahs, with most believing them to have become

infected from feeding on infected prey. This also includes preying on infected livestock. While

livestock are required by law to be vaccinated against anthrax, it is believed that some anthrax

may exist in the soil (Norwell, 1996). The problem with this is that wild prey species are no

treated for anthrax and that when they graze on soils not found in farmlands, they may be

ingesting some of the anthrax spores which are then transferred to the predators. In Etosha, seven

radio collared cheetahs were infected and killed by anthrax (Norwell, 1996).

Also due to genetics, cheetahs have more difficulty in successful reproduction than other

felines. Even in captivity, cheetahs were shown to have difficulty in reproduction with less than
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15% success. A closer look was taken, and results showed that males had a lower quantity and

quality of sperm with between 70% -75% of sperm produced being malformed (O’Brien et al,

2017). Having a low breeding success in captivity means that there is not enough of them being

born which means that there is a lower rate of reintroduction back into the wild. This does not

help to repopulate their numbers out in the wild if they are unable to be reintroduced.

The challenge with these issues is determining if humans should get involved or let

nature be and the difficulty of fully understanding genetics. Many people believe that humans

have done enough in the world and that we should just sit by and let nature take care of herself

the way she was meant to, that everything is a part of the circle of life. However, humans have

become so involved in the natural world that we are not letting nature regulate herself naturally.

We are reducing predation and diseases which would naturally regulate the ecosystem and

specie’s populations. Another challenge is that we do not fully understand genetics. There are

diseases we do not know how to treat and those we have vaccines for but have difficulty

administering them. For example, there are vaccines to protect house cats from FIP but

administering a vaccine on a fast moving and hard to find cheetah is a whole separate thing. I

believe that this is a major problem because diseases may be fast acting and hard hitting. You

may not know that a population has been infected until half of them are gone. Even then, finding

a cure is a long process. If the world’s cheetahs are kept being lost to diseases we do not fully

understand or are unsuccessful in combating, then it may only be a matter of time until they are

gone.

Areas of uncertainty

While there has been an increase in research over the past decade or so, there is still much

we do not know about cheetahs. For starters, we do not even know the exact number of cheetahs
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that exist in the world. We only have a population estimate of around 7,100 individuals. This

exact number is unknown because cheetahs are difficult to track due to them having vast home

ranges and low densities within these ranges. GPS collars are being used today to track cheetah

movements and determine their home ranges. GPS does have its limits though as they can be

slipped out of if not properly put on, they can break after time, and it only gets you within a

certain distance of the animal.

Another information gap is that we do not know exactly how many cattle are killed by

cheetahs. It is important for farmers to have certainty over what is killing their livestock when

they demand compensation from the government. It is not unreasonable to imagine that what a

farmer thinks are a cheetah kill may be from a lion or a leopard. It is very difficult to say with

certainty that a cheetah has been killing their livestock. I propose that for every time there is a

report of livestock being killed by predators, an investigation should occur to determine if they

really died from natural causes or if they were killed, and if so, determine what exactly killed it.

This would hopefully help determine the exact number of instances and rule out farmers just

playing the system for financial compensation.

We are also not certain how many cheetahs are smuggled out of Africa every year. There is

an estimate of 300 cubs smuggled out of the horn of Africa every year but once again that is just

an estimate. It does not help that CITES only mandated required reporting of illegal wildlife

smuggling annually until 2016. Tracking and cracking down on illegal poaching is difficult

because the way the world is changing. New technologies have made it easier for poachers to

hide their illegal activities. This is also made more difficult due to a lack of funding for

conservation organizations and not enough public support.

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One final uncertainty is a lack of complete understanding of cheetah genetics. Due to a

lack of genetic diversity, cheetahs are more susceptible to diseases and are considered frail

compared to other feline species. They need more resistance to diseases and more care if they do

become sick. To combat this problem, not only is more research on diseases needed, but more

research in effective methods of administering cures and vaccines. Without a better

understanding of their evolution and current genetics, there may be more diseases out there

waiting then what we are currently ready for.

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References

Africa Range-Wide Cheetah Conservation Initiative. (2022). Threats.

Cheetah | Official website of UN World Wildlife Day. (2022). UN.

Cheetah Conservation Fund. (2020, May 27). Holistic Conservation Strategy.

Marker, L. (2019, May 15). Chapter: Cheetahs Race for Survival: Ecology and Conservation.

IntechOpen.

Marker, L., Grisham, J., & Brewer, B. (2018). A Brief History of Cheetah Conservation.

Elsevier Public Health Emergency Collection, 3–16.

O’Brien, S. J., Johnson, W. E., Driscoll, C. A., Dobrynin, P., & Marker, L. (2017). Conservation

Genetics of the Cheetah: Lessons Learned and New Opportunities. Journal of Heredity,

108(6), 671–677.

Selebatso, M., Moe, S. R., & Swenson, J. E. 2008. Do farmers support cheetah Acinonyx jubatus

conservation in Botswana despite livestock depredation? Oryx, 42(03), 430–436.

Tricorache, P., Nowell, K., Wirth, G., Mitchell, N., Boast, L. K., & Marker, L. (2018). Pets and

pelts: Understanding and combating poaching and trafficking in cheetahs. Biodiversity of

the World—Cheetahs: Biology and Conservation. 1st ed. San Diego: Elsevier, 191-205.