The Red List

PëRMBLEDHJE

The world’s fastest land mammal is racing toward extinction, with the latest Cheetah census suggesting that the big cats, which are already few in number, may decline by an additional 53 percent over the next 15 years. Cheetah has been driven out of 91 percent of its historic range—the big cats once roamed nearly all of Africa and much of Asia, but their population is now confined predominantly to six African countries: Angola, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, South Africa, and Mozambique. The species is already almost extinct in Asia, with fewer than 50 individuals remaining in one isolated pocket of Iran. Cheetahs are getting killed directly, and then also their prey species are getting killed in these savannah areas, so the Cheetahs having nothing to subsist on.