Cheetah Census Seeks to Map, Halt its Rapid Decline
Date: 30-Jun-03
Country: SOUTH AFRICA
Author: Toby Reynolds
The sight of cubs, small bundles of fur tumbling over the patient head of their mother, gets spectators even more excited, say staff at the De Wildt Cheetah and Wildlife Trust near Johannesburg, the world's only internationally approved breeding center for the big cats.
But some South Africans are less enthusiastic about the animals, which can beat a Ferrari over a 60-yard sprint.
The De Wildt Trust says the rise of private game farming has intensified a long conflict between farmers and the endangered carnivore that has seen at least 200 wild cheetahs -- from a wild population that may now be as low as 250 -- killed or removed from their wild habitat in South Africa over the last two years.
The trust's walls highlight this heightened threat with a set of photographs of hunters posing with dead cheetahs they have shot illegally, while its vets regularly treat animals maimed by farmers' guns and mauled by their dogs.
The De Wildt has responded to the killings, and to calls to allow hunting of the cats in South Africa, by launching a country-wide census that will use aircraft, radio collars, video cameras and genetic testing to obtain the first ever comprehensive survey of a national cheetah population.
It will be several years before the work is finished, but the rapid decline in the wild population makes it all the more important, says Ann van Dyk, the trust's director.
COULD DISAPPEAR FROM SOUTH AFRICA
She says killings by disgruntled farmers and illegal hunters have put the animal in danger of disappearing completely from South Africa.
"There has been a tremendous lobby to put the cheetah on the hunting list. ... We feel that there is no way that could be justified when we don't know how many cheetahs there are.
"Cheetahs are very, very special," she said, stroking one of the tame big cats she has reared. "It would be a great shame if a time came when our children and our children's children were not able to see the cheetah."
There are an estimated 12-15,000 cheetahs in the world, and the big cat is listed along with the world's most endangered creatures on appendix I to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).
Namibia has the biggest population with an estimated 2,000 to 3,000 but no one knows for certain.
South Africa is thought to harbor something in the region of 1,000 cats, but some 600 of those are in captivity.
The De Wildt center estimates the wild population could be as low as 250. Deputy Director Vanessa Bouwer says 200 cheetahs have been killed or illegally exported from the country's Limpopo and Northwest provinces in the last two years alone.
"The perception is that there are lots. The reality is that there are not," she said, noting that one study in a part of Limpopo province had shown that although farmers believed their district held more than 1,000 animals, the real population numbered 40 to 60.
Cheetah populations are already so small that inbreeding is a significant risk.
A lack of significant differences between partners means that disadvantageous parental traits are more likely to appear in their offspring, most of whom already die before reaching adulthood.
TEARS OVER DEAD CHILDREN
Only 40 percent of cubs reach maturity: Legend has it that the characteristic dark lines running under the cheetah's eyes are the stains from tears shed over lost children.
Cheetahs out run any other animal, reaching between 56 and 70 miles an hour at full speed, and yet can turn on a dime, bringing their 77 to 132 pound frame to a standstill from 20 mph in a single stride.
They prey on small to medium-sized animals, picking off mainly the weak and the young from the herds of antelope that dot Africa's plains.
Their kills have earned them the wrath of farmers in the north of South Africa, where the wild population roams.
Cattle farmers have always come into conflict with wild predators, and the growth of private game farms charging
