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posted by martyb on Wednesday December 13 2017, @02:13AM   Printer-friendly
from the act-quickly! dept.

Scientists Urge Endangered Listing for Cheetahs

A comprehensive assessment of cheetah populations in southern Africa supported by the National Geographic Society reveals the dire state of one of the planet's most iconic big cats. In a study published today in the open-access journal PeerJ, researchers present evidence that low cheetah population estimates in southern Africa and population decline support a call to list the cheetah as "Endangered" on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List.

With partial support from the National Geographic Society's Big Cats Initiative, an international team of 17 researchers, led by Florian Weise of the Claws Conservancy and Varsha Vijay of Duke University, analyzed more than two million collared cheetah observations from a long-term study by the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research and another 20,000 cheetah observations from the research community and the general public. Their findings show that free-ranging cheetahs were present across approximately 789,700 square kilometers in Namibia, Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe between 2010 and 2016.

[...] The study estimates only 3,577 adult cheetahs exist in this extensive area, which is larger than France, and a majority (55 percent) of individuals are found within only two habitats. This estimate is 19 percent lower than the IUCN's current assessment, supporting the call for the uplisting of cheetahs from "Vulnerable" to "Endangered."

The distribution and numbers of cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) in southern Africa (open, DOI: 10.7717/peerj.4096) (DX)


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  • (Score: 1) by starvingboy on Wednesday December 13 2017, @12:23PM (6 children)

    by starvingboy (6766) on Wednesday December 13 2017, @12:23PM (#609190)

    No offense, but I think you might be wrong. There are an awful lot of animals on the endangered species list that are dangerous to humans. It would seem that if human society finds you threatening, your days are numbered.

    Chickens/Cows/pigs on the other hand, are doing just fine.

  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 13 2017, @12:50PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 13 2017, @12:50PM (#609196)

    wolves are being reintroduced in places where they were hunted to extinction.
    conservation efforts are also focused on bears in several places, even though bears kill and eat people who get in their way.

    obviously, once you start talking about much poorer societies (such as those found in Africa and Asia), it becomes a battle for survival, and humans will not give a shit about the fat white people who complain about the killing of species.
    hence the need to talk to the UN about it, and come up with an acceptable solution (I am not that fat, but I am a white european, and I am of the opinion that the various big predators should not go extint).
    by acceptable solution I mean "don't kill the animals or the humans. fix the human economy so that they don't need to use the animal habitat for anything, therefore reducing contact between humans and animals".

  • (Score: 2) by arulatas on Wednesday December 13 2017, @02:28PM (1 child)

    by arulatas (3600) on Wednesday December 13 2017, @02:28PM (#609215)

    This is why Dodos are extinct. They were very dangerous to the ship going humans who killed them. /s

    --
    ----- 10 turns around
    • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday December 13 2017, @05:07PM

      by Freeman (732) on Wednesday December 13 2017, @05:07PM (#609272) Journal

      It's a common misconception that humans hunting the Dodo birds is what led to their extinction. We definitely caused them to go extinct, but more so due to the introduction of invasive species. "The impact of the introduced animals on the dodo population, especially the pigs and macaques, is today considered more severe than that of hunting.[89]" -- Wikipedia

      --
      Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
  • (Score: 2) by t-3 on Wednesday December 13 2017, @08:52PM (1 child)

    by t-3 (4907) on Wednesday December 13 2017, @08:52PM (#609369)

    Pigs are plenty dangerous to humans. They WILL eat you, given the chance.

    • (Score: 2) by coolgopher on Thursday December 14 2017, @01:08AM

      by coolgopher (1157) on Thursday December 14 2017, @01:08AM (#609523)

      And don't get me started on goats - those bastards will push you off any high point with glee. And if there's no high point around, they'll settle for plain ground and still push you off. #banthegoats