I have loved watching and reading about animals since I was a little kid. I especially enjoy the big cats of Asia and Africa: Tigers, Lions, Leopards, and Cheetahs. Even their canine counterparts (Wolves, Hyenas, African Hunting Dogs), whom I also enjoy watching, can not command as much of my attention as the big cats.
That said, it is pretty clear that the big cats are not created equal. The Leopard lives on more continents than any other big cat, making it the king/queen of adaptation. Lions are the second most successful big cat in Africa, with their pack behavior, large size, and the tourist industry giving them a definite edge against other predators. Leopards and Lions are thriving, or at least surviving, in the modern world.
Tigers are struggling in Asia, but only because of human encroachment. The small efforts made towards preserving Tiger populations show signs of success, but it is ultimately up to the people of India and China to adopt the African attitude. The sooner they start to see Tigers as a rich tourist attraction instead of as an annoyance or a threat, the better it will be for the Tiger population. In a way, one can think of "looking cool" as the Tiger's most valuable survival trait in the modern world. They also need to be able to tolerate human presence. Most Lions in Africa do not mind resting a short distance away from a bunch of humans in a vehicle. If Tigers can behave similarly, they will survive.
This just leaves us with the Cheetah. The smallest of the four big cats I mentioned, the Cheetah is also struggling to survive. 100 years ago there were an estimated 100,000 Cheetahs, while today the number is closer to approximately 10,000. Cheetahs used to range across the wild plains of Europe and India, but now you would be hard-pressed to find any living in either region outside of zoos. Due to their physical attributes and hunting behavior, they can only survive in wide open plains (such as the African savanna), and humans absolutely love to build in flat, open terrain.
Yet, the declining Cheetah population is not just due to humans encroaching on their habitats or hunting them. The Cheetah itself has many traits which make it difficult to adapt. Most noticeably, it is a beast specializing in speed. It can accelerate from 0 to 40 miles per hour in just three strides, and it can sprint up to a top speed of 70 miles per hour. It travels faster than the speed limit of a California highway. This makes it an extremely effective hunter of fast prey in the open savanna.
However, the physical characteristics that help it reach such high speeds are also what contribute to its lack of adaptability in the modern world. Because of its small head, it has weak jaws, so it has to kill its prey using suffocation. Its legs are too slim to use for brawling like a Lion or Leopard. As for its claws, because the Cheetah can not retract them, it can not keep them sharp. The blunt claws can only provide traction while running and perhaps help trip up prey. The Cheetah's greatest weapon is speed, and it can easily lose that speed if it is injured. This is an animal that simply isn't designed to fight. That's a shame, in part because almost all of the prey animals in Africa are great fighters. The only prey a Cheetah can safely hunt without risk of fatal injury are Antelopes such as Gazelle and Impala.
The Cheetah also has another unfortunate physical trait designed to help its speed: a lack of body fat. Unlike most predators, the Cheetah has no stored fat to help it survive in lean times. Even after it is full from a successful kill, the Cheetah would only have enough energy for perhaps three more hunts. In other words, if it fails to catch any prey in three hunts, it would begin to starve to death. Imagine all the basketball players who miss three shots in a row, or football quarterbacks who throw three consecutive incomplete passes. Those are the odds the Cheetah faces when it hunts.
Furthermore, it is not enough for the Cheetah to catch and kill its prey. Even after expending all that energy to catch a Gazelle or Impala, it still has to keep some in reserve to run away when a bigger predator (such as a Lion or Hyena) arrives to steal the prized meat. Cheetahs can not afford to get injured in a fight, especially against a larger foe, so they always prefer to flee at the sign of trouble. Unfortunately, they can not do that with their meal in tow, so the Cheetah could still end up starving after a successful hunt.
As difficult as hunting is for Cheetahs, the biggest threat to the Cheetah population is in reproduction. Genetic studies have revealed that Cheetahs lack genetic variety due to inbreeding. This has led to a lot of problems with Cheetah cubs and a high infant mortality rate. Even breeding Cheetahs in captivity has failed to produce better results.
On top of the genetic uniformity and weaknesses associated with inbreeding, Cheetah cubs are also very susceptible to being killed by other predators. Lions, Leopards, Hyenas, and even Eagles will take a bite out of a small Cheetah cub if given the chance. If, through a combination of effort and luck, a Cheetah cub survives to adulthood, it is still not an adept hunter by the time its mother abandons it. A young adult Cheetah still has a lot to learn through trial and error, and just one injury from a bad hunt or a fight with another predator will kill the Cheetah's chances for survival.
The most successful litter of cubs I have ever seen is one that hunted as a group after their mother abandoned them. They were four brothers who were raised by an experienced mom. Usually, young Cheetah mothers fail to keep all but one or none of their cubs alive. Experienced mothers are more successful on average, but keeping four cubs alive to adulthood is still quite an accomplishment. Rather than go their separate ways, the four cubs stuck together, forming an impromptu same-sex pack.
Another animal that likes to do this is the extremely successful African Hunting Dog. African Hunting Dogs love to form a same-sex pack that eventually merges with an opposite-sex pack when they find each other. These packs are very tightly-knit groups and have no internal disorder. They cooperate very well, and succeed in approximately 80% of their hunts.
The four-pack of Cheetahs is much smaller than a pack of African Hunting Dogs, and they are not likely to find multiple female Cheetahs willing to live with them for more than a few days, but their success at hunting was very real. They made up for their lack of experience with coordination born from growing up together. I never did find out how they did in the long run, but it would be pretty cool if they remained a successful pack into old age (17 years for captive Cheetahs and about 10 years for wild Cheetahs).
But as I mentioned earlier, finding a large group of Cheetah cubs that live to adulthood is very rare, and there's no guarantee that they will survive even after they are abandoned by their mother. Cheetahs are too ultra-specialized in speed, and their lack of adaptability is not only making it hard on them in the wild, but it is proving a problem in captivity too. Many scientists and conservationists have tried and failed to make the captive Cheetah population stable. Right now, both the captive and wild populations are in decline.
It would be a shame if the fastest land animal in the world went extinct, and at least one Conservationist has devoted her life to preventing the Cheetah's extinction. Her name is Dr. Laurie Marker of the Cheetah Conservation Fund in Namibia. Dr. Laurie Marker works with the local government and local farmers to understand their needs and balance them with the needs of the endangered Cheetahs. One of the goals is to inspire locals to become Conservationists, and to provide education so that locals have a new understanding of the wildlife around them.
If Dr. Laurie Marker succeeds, the wild Cheetah might become an even greater success story than the Tigers in captivity and the Lions in the wildlife preserves.
Sources and Further Information:
African Wildlife Foundation: Cheetah
Wilflife Conservation Network: Cheetah
Cheetah.Org Fact Sheet
ABC News Blog: Cheetahs in the Wild
How Stuff Works: Cheetah Speed
Pictures of Cats: Cheetah Facts
Do you think the pronghorn antelope secretly hopes the cheetah goes extinct so that they will be the fastest land animal?
ReplyDeleteThe American Cheetah already went extinct. I think the pronghorn is still celebrating that. They don't want to be too greedy now. :)
ReplyDeleteI love you guys. :)
ReplyDeleteThat is all.
Okay, so more seriously:
ReplyDeleteOne of the first things I started doing when I had money of my own is donating to KQED and education-related non-profits (with some basic-needs non-profits thrown in). You'll have money of your own in a couple years. Do you think you'll donate to cheetah conservation funds? I always struggle with this. I think writing articles like this makes a lot of sense. It's good to raise awareness. And I feel like my funding of science- and nature- related education and public broadcasting stations helps to raise a new generation that will care. But I always feel like we should funnel our donation money towards helping people more than animals, so I shy away from directly donating to save X animal. What do you think you'll do?
Now if there were a non-profit working on helping Asian communities develop a Tiger-related tourism industry, that would be perfect.
To be clear, there are actually less Tigers in the world than there are Cheetahs. 3,000 vs 10,000. However, I didn't focus on the Tigers because we already know conservation strategies work with Tigers. All that needs doing now is to change the attitude of Asians towards wild Tigers.
ReplyDeleteFor Cheetahs, it's not that simple. Finding a solution means more than just preventing locals from killing them, or breeding them in captivity. The strategies that can save Tigers aren't enough with Cheetahs. Funneling money at the problem won't solve it until there's an actual solution.
That's why I posted about Cheetahs. Even in captivity, Cheetah growth is negative. That's not the case with Tigers. Clearly, there's something wrong with the Cheetah itself. It's not just environmental factors, competitors, or humans. There's something fundamentally wrong with the Cheetah population.
I suspect it's in the genetic variety, or lack thereof. Since most Cheetahs are blood relatives, they don't mate as often as they might have in the past.