Save the last Cheetahs of South Africa!

  • by: Mariah Avalos
  • recipient: President of South Africa, Mr. Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma

 Acinonyx jubatus, known today as the Cheetah, is the world’s fastest land animal. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service lists the cheetah as an Endangered Species. It is protected under CITES, Appendix I which bans international commerce but quotas for trophies are provided to Namibia and Zimbabwe. In the IUCN Red List, cheetahs are listed as a vulnerable species.
 In 1990 the cheetah population was at 100,000 and today there are approximately 10,000 left. Cheetahs once ranged across the entire African continent, except for the Congo Basin, and into Asia from the Arabian Peninsula to eastern India. Today, cheetahs are found in only 23% of their historic African range and additionally have become extinct in twenty countries. The underlying reasons for the cheetah’s endangerment are habitat loss and illegal wildlife trade.
 Loss of habitat and its increasing fragmentation represents the greatest over-arching threat to cheetahs. Because this species lives at such low densities and ranges so widely, their population require a much larger area of land to survive than do those of other carnivore species.Rapid population growth, agriculturally intensive programs, construction of roads and grazing livestock in Zimbabwe, South Africa, and Swaziland has altered the landscape that the cheetah once called home. As a result of the lands being destroyed by human expansion, numerous landscapes in Africa that could once support thousands of cheetahs now struggle to support just a handful.
 There is a high demand for cheetah as pets today, which leads cheetahs to be illegally captured and smuggled to different countries where they are highly desired. Cheetah cubs are unusually easy to tame, which has led them to be smuggled for pets. Cubs are smuggled from the Horn of Africa in groups of up to 30, and 50%-70% of those cubs die in transit. These well known predators are not capable of becoming pets and living within a contained compound. When they become mature they usually change their behavior from a cuddly cat to a real wild animal, which means that they become unpredictable and even aggressive.
 People are unaware that the cheetah population is in dire trouble, with an estimated extinction date of 15 years. The long-term survival of the cheetah depends upon the reconciliation of habitat destruction and a halt in wildlife trade. The human population of the world is continuing to grow, while the once vast numbers of cheetahs continue to dwindle. This can be avoided however, through the use of several proven techniques that are capable of allowing humans and cheetahs to coexist in Africa. This problem can be avoided but it requires the active participation of all the involved parties. Let your voice be heard and take a stand to protect these animals from extinction. You have the power to create change, so use it!

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