A cheetah cub purred as it chewed on a windshield wiper; another admired itself in the Land Rover’s fender mirror; a third, sitting on the roof, dangled its tail beside an open window . . . George and Lory Frame, who studied cheetahs and wild dogs in the Serengeti in the late 1970’s, recount how, one day, five large, playful cheetah cubs, members of a family they were studying, turned the tables on the two researchers and investigated them, instead. For the Frames it must have been a welcome break from their usual routine of hours and hours of careful observation and note-taking.

George and Lory certainly had an interesting animal to study: An inhabitant of wooded savanna, open plains, and desert, the cheetah is a striking cat: lightly built, with long, thin legs, small feet with blunt, unsheathed claws, and small rounded head, it’s built for speed–the field version of a greyhound, as one researcher put it. Capable of top speeds of 60-70 mph (90-112 kph), it’s the fastest animal in the world, a specialist in hunting small, but fast antelopes, such as Thomson’s gazelles (and hares), seldom killing animals larger than itself.

However, becoming so speedy has involved tradeoffs. A sprinter with little stamina for chases beyond 300 m / 985 ft., a cheetah must use whatever cover (tall grass, shrubs, trees, ravines) is available to get as close as possible to its prey before attacking it. Furthermore, the cheetah has sacrificed not just stamina, but also the strength (it’s less than a fourth the weight of a full-grown lion) and weapons (note those dull claws) needed to protect itself from other predators. Consequently, cheetahs must avoid large predators, especially lions, which often kill cheetah cubs as well as steal kills. Hyenas also frequently appropriate prey killed by cheetahs. Therefore, cheetahs do not hunt at night, which is when lions and hyenas are most active.

Cheetahs also are unique in that males are social while females are solitary and shy (but still highly promiscuous). Furthermore, they have large home ranges, the largest, up to 400 sq. miles (1,036 sq. km), being those of individual females. Groups of males, called coalitions, defend smaller territories, 14-62 sq. miles (36-160 sq. km) in area, within female home ranges.

Large home ranges, and mortality from larger predators so intense it limits cheetah numbers even when prey is abundant (less than half of all cheetahs live beyond three months), means that cheetahs never achieve high densities–they are always less abundant than other African carnivores. For instance, the 15,444 sq. mile (40,000 sq. km) Serengeti-Mara Ecosystem (see map at end of post), an area larger than the state of Maryland, and almost twice the size of Wales, has 275 cheetahs (the world’s highest density of these cats), but also 3,000 lions and at least 7,200 hyenas. (The Ngorongoro Conservation Area is part of the Serengeti-Mara Ecosystem.)

Most other protected areas are too small to protect viable cheetah populations. Of the roughly 10,000 cheetahs in Africa, about 2/3 live in unprotected areas where. due to persecution and loss of habitat, their numbers are declining. Low populations, the need for young males to sometimes travel large distances to establish new territories, and an extraordinarily low degree of genetic diversity means that cheetahs, of all carnivores, are most vulnerable to habitat loss and fragmentation. (Low genetic diversity also raises the possibility that a disease could devastate wild populations.). Thus, steps are needed to conserve them outside protected areas.

Some conservationists see the cheetah’s future linked to the survival of traditional pastoral livestock management. This is because, historically, there has been little conflict between cheetahs and traditional pastoralists, who minimize stock losses to carnivores by seldom leaving their animals unattended during the day and corralling them at night in protected enclosures.

MAPS

MAJOR REFERENCES

Estes, R.D. 1991. The behavior guide to African mammals: Including hoofed mammals, carnivores, primates. The University of California Press.

Fosbrooke, H. 1972. Ngorongoro: The eighth wonder. Andre Deutsch.

Frame, G. & L. Frame. 1981. Swift and enduring: Cheetahs and wild dogs of the Serengeti. E.P. Dutton.

Durant. S. 2004. Survival of the fastest: The cheetahs of the Serengeti. Africa Geographic. Pages30-32.

Zoological Society of London. Cheetah conservation in Africa. ZSL.org