Four species of critically endangered vulture have returned to a park in southern Malawi from which they disappeared more than 20 years ago, and their comeback is credited to the reintroduction of cheetahs, lions and the carcasses the cats left behind, conservationists say. In 2017, seven cheetahs (Acinonyx jubatus) were reintroduced to Liwonde National Park […]
Tag: Acinonyx jubatus
Rehabilitation research returns orphaned cheetahs to the wild
The cheetah is the world’s fastest land animal, but it’s running out of space. Its range has been reduced dramatically over the past decades, and populations continue to decline. Identifying solutions to conserve and protect the species in the wild is thus vital. A new study published in the journal Oryx by the Cheetah Conservation […]
Wild cat trade: Why the cheetah is not safe just yet
A recent article on the Emirati newspaper The National reports that, according to conservationists, “The increased enforcement by Somaliland in the Gulf [of Aden] and along known smuggling routes, plus the increased community awareness for poaching as a crime has led to a major decline in cub trafficking.” While this is a positive outlook, and […]
In the Horn of Africa, conflict and illegal trade create a ‘cheetah hell’
The 8-week-old cheetah cubs should have been with their mother. Instead, they were penned up in a small village near Erigavo, Somaliland, after a group of nomadic livestock farmers chased the mother away and captured the cubs from a nearby cave. “There were actually three [cubs],” Asma Bileh, a Somaliland veterinarian for the Cheetah Conservation […]
Spots of hope: Some good news for South Africa’s cheetahs
DURBAN, South Africa — South Africa is home to around 1,300 of the world’s roughly 7,100 remaining cheetahs. It’s also the only country in the world with significant cheetah population growth, thanks largely to a nongovernmental conservation project that depends on careful and intensive human management of small, fenced-in cheetah populations. Because most of the […]
Cheetahs, CITES, and illegal trade: Are consumer countries doing enough? (commentary)
At the end of August, countries from across the world came together at the 18th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (CoP18) to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES)to discuss actions to combat illegal trade in endangered species and to ensure sustainable management of legal trade. […]
Pumas engineer their environment, providing habitat for other species
New research suggests that mountain lions in the western United States play an outsize role in changing their surroundings, leading the authors of the study to suggest that the big cats are “ecosystem engineers.” In a study published online Nov. 30 in the journal Oecologia, biologist Mark Elbroch and his colleagues demonstrate that the assortment […]
Five wildlife conservationists held by Iran could face the death penalty
Up to five conservation researchers accused of spying by the Iranian government could face the death penalty if convicted, according to multiple media reports. Conservationists Niloufar Bayani, Taher Ghadirian, Houman Jowkar, Sepideh Kashani and Morad Tahbaz work with the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation on the conservation of different wildlife species in Iran, which includes monitoring […]