Young cubs spend that time learning from their mother and practicing hunting techniques with playful games. After leaving their mother, littermates stick together for another six months before the females strike out on their own. Cheetah populations are under pressure as the open grasslands they favor are disappearing to human occupation and development.
Given their solitary lives and the size of their home ranges, cheetahs need large areas of connected habitat— likely upwards of 3, square miles —to find mates and ultimately survive as a species.
However, human settlements have fragmented their habitat, and most protected areas are not large enough to sustain cheetah populations. If a cheetah kills a goat or sheep, the livestock owner may kill the cheetah in retaliation.
No one knows how many cubs are taken from the wild for the pet trade each year, but some estimates say it may be several hundred. Cheetahs also face fierce competition for prey, and their cubs are particularly vulnerable to predation from lions. Compounding all these problems, cheetahs have an extremely low level of genetic variation , which is essential for a species to evolve in the face of environmental changes and disease.
This lack of genetic variation is thought to have nearly caused their extinction at the end of the last ice age —and scientists fear it leaves them vulnerable to extinction today. Cheetah conservation is particularly difficult given their wide geographic range—it requires large-scale, regional collaboration across countries. Hunting cheetahs is illegal in most of the countries where they can be found, as is owning them as pets. All rights reserved. But did you know their tails play a crucial role in hunting?
Check out these and other fun facts about cheetahs. Common Name: Cheetahs. Scientific Name: Acinonyx jubatus. Type: Mammals. Diet: Carnivore. Young females typically stick closer to home, sometimes even occupying the same range as their mother, though living independent of her. Their home ranges are more extensive than those of males and can cover up to square miles square km , largely as a result of the big cats following the migration path of gazelles, a primary food source.
In the wild, cheetahs have lifespans of 8 to 10 years. In captivity, they can live longer — around 15 years or more — due to human care and lack of natural predators. Cheetahs are carnivores, or meat eaters, whose typical prey are small- to medium-size animals, such as birds, hares, warthogs, gazelles and young wildebeest. During daybreak and dusk, cheetahs spend their time stalking and catching prey.
Because their teeth are short compared to other big cats, notes the Smithsonian , cheetahs don't go for the throat right away in an attack. Cheetahs often try to hide the corpse so other animals won't help themselves to it. They meet with varied success, as vultures and other animals often steal a cheetah's kill. Despite being carnivores, cheetahs are the most timid of the big cats, and rarely attack humans.
Only a handful of non-fatal cheetah-human attacks occur each year, and those almost always involve aggravated cheetahs in captivity. For example, between and , only nine of the documented incidents involving big cats had to do with cheetahs, according to the Humane Society of the United States. Unlike other large cats, cheetahs can't roar. But they can purr just like house cats. Compared with other big cats, such as lions, tigers, and leopards, cheetahs have a wide vocabulary, according to the Smithsonian.
As nearly everyone knows, cheetahs can run faster than any animal on earth. But they cannot seem to outrun the various factors that have sent cheetah populations into drastic decline. Formerly the cheetah Acinonyx jubatus was far more widespread see map below right. In historic times cheetahs lived as far east as extreme eastern India and as far north as southern Kazakhstan.
Moreover, two-million-year-old fossils are known from China. When it comes to mating, there are no dominant males within the coalition that claim exclusive access to females. All males within a coalition will mate. Unsustainable human expansion and irresponsible consumption can cause pressure on ecosystems worldwide. Population research has shown that when habitat is destroyed and populations become fragmented and isolated, the rate of inbreeding increases and the genetic diversity lowers.
Physiological impairments such as: poor sperm quality, focal palatine erosion, susceptibility to infectious diseases, and kinked tails are a result of low genetic diversity within both the wild and captive cheetah population.
Cheetahs are visual hunters. Unlike other big cats cheetahs are diurnal, meaning they hunt in early morning and late afternoon. The hunt has several components. It includes prey detection, stalking, the chase, tripping or prey capture , and killing by means of a suffocation bite to the throat. The prey species on which the cheetah depends have evolved speed and avoidance techniques that can keep them just out of reach. Cheetahs will also prey on the calves of larger herd animals.
Cheetahs generally prefer to prey upon wild species and avoid hunting domestic livestock. The exception happening in sick, injured and either old or young and inexperienced cheetahs. Keeping livestock in kraals and utilizing non-lethal means of protection can dramatically reduce livestock predation. While cheetahs can reach remarkable speeds, they cannot sustain a high speed chase for very long. They must catch their prey in 30 seconds or less as they cannot maintain maximum speeds for much longer.
Cheetahs spend most of their time sleeping and they are minimally active during the hottest portions of the day. They prefer shady spots and will sleep under the protection of large shady trees. Cheetahs do not hunt at night, they are most active during the morning and evening hours. The cheetah serves a special role in its ecosystem. Cheetahs are one of the most successful hunters on the savanna but their kills are very often stolen by larger carnivores or predators that hunt in groups.
Predators play an important role in any ecosystem. They keep prey species healthy by killing the weak and old individuals. They also act as a population check which helps plants-life by preventing overgrazing. Without predators like the cheetah, the savanna ecosystem in Namibia would be very different and the current ecological trend toward desertification would be accelerated. They growl when facing danger, and they vocalize with sounds more equivalent to a high-pitched chirp or bubble and they bark when communicating with each other.
The cheetah can also purr while both inhaling and exhaling. Only a handful of individuals remained. The population of cheetahs rebounded. Once found throughout Asia and Africa, today there are fewer than 7, adult and adolescent cheetahs in the wild. In Namibia, they are a protected species. Most wild cheetahs exist in fragmented populations in pockets of Africa, occupying a mere 9 percent of their historic range.
In Iran, fewer than 50 Asiatic cheetahs a sub-species remain. The largest single population of cheetahs occupies a six-country polygon that spans Namibia, Botswana, South Africa, Angola, Mozambique and Zambia. In captivity cheetahs can live from 17 — 20 years. In countries across Africa, like Namibia, it is illegal to capture and take live cheetahs from the wild. Also in the majority of African countries, like Namibia, it is illegal to keep cheetahs under private ownership or as pets.
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