In sad news, the fastest mammal in the world, the cheetah, is rapidly heading toward extinction. Only 7,100 cheetahs are now left in the wild across the globe. With population numbers this low, there is a serious chance that cheetahs could be wiped out completely in the very near future. 

Why are cheetahs going extinct? 
The main reason that cheetahs are at risk is their incredible range. Cheetahs are known for roaming far and wide at high speeds, meaning they often leave protected lands and run into conflict with humans. It is estimated that 77% of a cheetah’s habitat falls outside protected wildlife reserves. Once outside these protected spaces, cheetahs will encounter infrastructure development and competition for their prey from human hunters. 

Cheetahs are a notoriously elusive species, given their wide roaming range and capability for high speeds. Due to this, they have been difficult to track and study. Dr. Sarah Durant, from the Zoological Society of London, explains that because of the difficulty in gathering accurate information on cheetahs, their risk of extinction has gone overlooked. Many people believe that because cheetahs are so fast, they are not at risk. To harm a cheetah, you’d have to be able to catch one, right? Unfortunately, even this speedster is not immune to threats of over-development, over-hunting and even poaching and trafficking. 

In a BBC report from earlier this year, we learned that young cheetah cubs are being trafficked out of Africa and sold to merchants from the Gulf states. An estimated 1,200 cheetah cubs were illegally taken out of Africa over the last decade. Unfortunately, the vast majority of these young cheetahs, 85%, do not survive the journey to their new home and die en route. And yet, traffickers still continue to sell and trade cheetah cubs, because a live one who does survive the trip to the Gulf states can fetch its trafficker up to $10,000.

How many cheetahs are left and where are they? 

More than half of the remaining 7,100 cheetahs worldwide live in southern Africa. Despite finding their home in the southern half of this continent, cheetahs here are still facing a serious threat of extinction. In Zimbabwe, the cheetah population fell from 1,200 to 170 in only sixteen short years. The main cause for this drastic drop is human development in areas cheetahs used to call home. 

Cheetahs used to roam wild in great numbers across Asia. Now, fewer than fifty survive in the Asian country of Iran. Protecting this small sector of Asian cheetahs is a top priority for animal conservationists. 

How can we help to save the cheetahs? 
Conservationists and animal rights activists are taking the first step in saving cheetahs from extinction by making their plight public. They’re hoping their efforts are not too late and that there will still be time to save the species. The first step is working with the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) Red List to re-categorize cheetahs from the “vulnerable” to “endangered” category. The IUCN Red List is comprised of seven steps from “least concern” to “extinct.” “Vulnerable” is the third step on the Red List before “endangered”, “critically endangered”, “extinct in the wild” and “extinct.” 

At the CITES (Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species) 2016 World Wildlife Conference in Johannesburg, South Africa this fall, governments of southern African countries agreed that serious measures needed to be put into place in order to protect cheetahs. One agreed upon solution the governments want to institute is ending the use of social media to advertise cheetahs for sale. 

But new studies in conservation say that cheetahs need more than traditional methods of protecting. Dr Kim Young-Overton from Panthera says that protecting land is no longer enough since cheetahs will naturally roam beyond protected lands. Incentive-based protection is a new method that researchers are exploring as an alternative to protecting areas of land. The incentive-based approach may involve paying local communities to protect cheetahs, a species known amongst locals as a dangerous predator. 

If researchers are able to use their recent reports and studies to move cheetahs from “vulnerable” to “endangered” on the IUCN Red List, that will direct international attention and protection efforts toward cheetahs, a species that gravely needs the support.