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Bashir, S.
Spotting cheetahs on the Serengeti Plains
2004 Lifewatch (Summer 2004): 23-25
The Serengeti plains happen to be the study area of the Serengeti Cheetah Project (SCP), the world's longest-running field project for wild cheetahs. Since 1991, the project has been run by Sarah Durant of ZSL. Much of what we know about wild cheetah ecology and behaviour comes from work done on the Serengeti over the past 30 years. During this period the SCP has built up a database on the study population based on individual recognition, which is possible because, just like fingerprints in humans, every cheetah has a unique pattern of spots. Over the last 12 years the plains' study population has fluctuated between less than 50 to 90 adults, of which two-thirds are generally female and the rest male. We estimate that altogether there are only 250 adults in the entire Serengeti National Park, which covers approximately 14,000km2.
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