I don’t know what your feelings towards cheetah, for many of not most people they have vague idea of the cheetah because it’s the fastest animal on earth. My family have a model cheetah, full size, something I’ve always loved – and it built a deep love for these animals. I was lucky enough to see one whole in the Kruger – not many at the time, so very lucky. I hope this time we will see more
Cheetah running at speed
However, for perhaps most they know little else. I have written on them many times, I believe they are an essential tool for conservation. Given their size, they don’t generally attack humans, and kill livestock far less. Having a historic range that encompasses most of Africa and much of Asia, there are many places they could be, but instead they face extinction once again.
In liwonde national park, 4 species of vulture; all considered critically endangered have returned. What has prompted this? Well the reintroduction of lion and cheetah has retires some meat two be put out and this has attached the vultures.
The park is a little over 2000 square miles (5500 square km) and the cheetah population has reached 42.
One of the first cheetah to be released
Lion and cheetah were lost around 2000, and as a result the vultures left.
The problem is that was vultures are the main group cleaning up bodies, without them the bodies started and rotted. This was a perfect breeding ground for various illnesses that threaten the lives of both humans and livestock.
Farmers will often take revenge on livestock killings by poisoning the body. This usually like the lions, along with any scavengers that come along such as jackals and hennas.
However, it can have a decorating impact on vultures. Due to their way of finding near to scavenge, there can often be 20-30 vultures waiting while the lion eats – if a kill is poisened, it can kill every vulture for miles around.
Both lions and cheetah are missing from dozens of countries across Africa and Asia, places they historically roamed. While lions can cause more issues, cheetah cannot generally kill much livestock. As a result, there will be dozens of reserves where cheetah could return, allowing the reserve to start to operate more as it once did. Once this happens, tourists will start visiting and this leads to money which can help the rest of the reserves rejunivatiom. This in turn makes return of lions far easier, as assist from bringing in the funds to compensate livestock losses, it also brings in lots of money – allowing poor farmers to make more money and raise the standard of living for their family.
Cheetahs are the undisputed king of speed – at least over the relatively small distances. They are stunning animals, and any sighting is a memory to be treasured.
Cheetah numbered as much as 100,000 wild members just one century ago. Now there is just 7000-8000. What happened? Well a large part of their decline is down to habitat loss. Unlike other cats, cheetah thrive outside protected reserves. This is not because cheetah never get killed by farmers – there are certainly problems, and some will be killed, however compared to the problems that the cheetah have when pushed into small reserves which dont allow enough space to get away from lions and leopards. In South Africa, as much as half of the cheetah population (which is about 1000) live on farm land. Despite the fact that they kill very little livestock, and indeed can actually benefit farmers by eating vermin that might eat crops.
Generally, cheetah live at low densities (except in the best reserves- places like the Serengeti, where their sprint ability is so useful) for instance, the Kruger which is the size of Wales, tends to only have a 100-200 cheetah in the whole area.
This makes them hard to see in the wild. On the other hand, one of the benefits is that Cheetah tend to hunt in the day (they hunt by site) and as such, if you go out in after lunch when most wildlife are lying in the shade.
All this means, that there is definitely a possibility to greatly improve their wild numbers, through a combination of removing poaching, and reintroducing them to places where they existed in the past.
This is a cheetah that we encountered on a kill, on our last trip to the Kruger
There are currently 5 recognized subspecies of the cheetah, 4 in Africa, and the last few remaining in Iran.
The northwestern africa cheetah is close to extinction (200 maximum – also known as the Saharan cheetah) is only seen occasionally and so is not one tourists go to see.
The north-east cheetah lives in South Sudan and Ethiopia and numbers between 1000-4000 (its status in Sudan, Eritria, Doubouti and Somalia is unknown.
The only remaining habitat of the Asiatic cheetah is in Iran where it is thought only 12 animals remain. It was lost from India 70 years ago.
The other two subspecies – are both well protected and well studied. These are represented in many of the reserves that we have listed (We hope to add reserves that cover the other subspecies as well, but these will be far harder to find the animal).
Southern African Cheetah
East African Cheetah
Some of the biggest and most well protected Cheetah populations – to go and see them for yourself.
Kruger -400 with the south African population being around 1300
Serengeti massai mara ecosystem up to 1000
Namibia – reserves and free roaming, account for up to 3500 ( that high may be lower)
Botswana hosts around 1700 cheetah
Limpopo Transfrontier park including Kruger sabi sands and other conservation areas
Greater Serengeti
It should be noted that adding up these estimates already exceed the African cheetah population, but this is the case with plenty of reserves – an overestimate in the number of the species in an area often makes people more willing to visit. Possibly as this website grows we might be able to help in correcting this.
The Saharan cheetah roams a large area around the fringes of the Saharan desert, and only has around 100 wild members at the current time.
Other species in the Cheetah lineage (it shares its clade with nothing else) include the Jaguarundi and the Mountain Lion
Alternatively, to visit the rest of the cat family click here.
The cheetah have arrived in India, and have been introduced into enclosures within the Kuno national park. At the current time, the enclosures are just
In liwonde national park, 4 species of vulture; all considered critically endangered have returned. What has prompted this? Well the reintroduction of lion and cheetah
11 years ago a DNA assessment was done on the Iranian cheetah. This cheetah population is the last Asian cheetah population remaining.
It was thought that all cheetah went through a bottleneck 10,000 years ago, meaning that all cheetah were closely related. However this is not as all encompassing as we thought.
