By Nathaniel Vorhees
The fastest mammal on the planet can reach up to 70 mph and accelerate from 0-60mph in a mere 3.5 seconds on par with the fastest cars on the planet. This extraordinary predator primarily roams the Savannah throughout southeast Africa including Kenya, Zimbabwe, and surrounding countries. Built with a slender frame and long legs, the cheetah is one of the most graceful animals on the planet and is built to hunt.
This cheetah scans its grassland, likely on the lookout for its next meal.
While the cheetah is well suited for taking down prey such as gazelles, small antelope, and game such as rabbits and birds, they are not the apex predator of the land. Weighing from 70-140 pounds, the cheetahs’ stature is small in comparison to the larger lions and leopards. Packs of hyenas may even attempt to prey on these undersized cats. This makes protecting their kills rather difficult as they are bullied by lions, hyenas, and even vultures who take away their meals. While adults are often able to avoid death by these fierce predators, cheetah cubs have a different story. Estimates show that just 5% of cheetah cubs will survive until adulthood with the largest proportion dying from predators, particularly lions. Further, there continues to be a decrease in genetic diversity among the cheetah population contributing to weak and underdeveloped immune systems of the cubs.
A pair of cheetah cubs at the Lincoln Zoo.
Cheetahs are quite unique animals in their social behavior. Adult females are solitary except when raising cubs, where they stay with their cubs until they are about 18 months old. When cubs are 6 months old, she will teach them to hunt. Once they are 18 months, the siblings will depart from their mother and live together for another 6 months, at which point the female siblings will go on to live on their own. On the other hand, the brothers will form a coalition and will stay together for life. Solitary male cheetahs are quite rare and often have difficulty surviving.
Communication between cheetahs is also unique as they do not roar like other big cats. Instead they most often use vocalizations called “chirping” which can be heard up to a mile away (listen here). In this way males are able to locate their coalition if they become separated, and females use chirping to attract potential mates. Similar to house cats, cheetahs also purr, which is thought to be a sign of contentment as this most often occurs when they are close to their family, particularly between a mother and her children. Cheetahs will yelp, an exceptionally loud chirp used in desperation, when they need to find another cheetah while in distress.
Overarchingly, these cats have exceptional hunting and survival skills, but their population continues to decrease due to natural death as well as human influences affecting their habitat. Humans also pose a great threat in poaching of these cheetahs and infringing on their habitat, directly contributing to cheetahs’ population decline. They are now listed as a vulnerable species. The Asiatic cheetah is even more at risk of being critically endangered with only 12 Asiatic cheetahs left in the wild. Greater environmental factors due to climate change are impacting all of wildlife throughout Africa as droughts and other severe weather is becoming more prevalent. While we can find great beauty in these animals, it is important to recognize the distress that we as humans are putting onto them.
