Cheetah - Guépard - Duma - Acinonyx jubatus
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Background
The cheetah was once one
of the most widely distributed land animals. Through the course of time,
cheetahs migrated over land bridges from North America into China, through
Asia, India, Europe, and finally to Africa, settling in its worldwide range as
recently as 20,000 years ago. In 1900, approximately 100,000 cheetahs were
found in at least 44 countries throughout Africa and Asia. The current
free-ranging African populations of cheetahs are found in small, fragmented
areas spread in 29 African countries of North Africa, the Sahel, East and
southern Africa, and it is estimated that around 15,000 animals remain,
representing a decline of nearly 90% over the century. However, current
information about the status of the cheetah in many countries, especially
countries that have been engaged in long civil wars, is lacking. The
information from North and West Africa is particularly limited, and the
cheetah's future in these areas is questionable. The remaining strongholds are
Kenya and Tanzania in East Africa, and Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe in
southern Africa. |
Description and morphology |
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The cheetah is markedly different in both anatomy and
behaviour from the other 36 species of Felidae. It is the fastest land mammal
over short distances (300-400m), and has the optimum body size and stride
length to reach these high speeds. Covering 7-8 meters
in a stride, with only one foot touching the ground at a time, the cheetah can
reach a speed of 110 km/h in seconds.
The distinguishing marks of a cheetah are the long
tear-drop shaped lines on each side of the nose from the corner of its eyes to
its mouth. The cheetah’s coat is tan to a yellow-buff colour, with smaller,
less distinct spots between larger spots, and a white belly. Near the end of
the tail, the spots merge to form several dark rings. The tail often ends in a
bushy white tuft. Although male cheetah are often slightly bigger than females
and have slightly larger heads, males and females are difficult to tell apart
by appearance alone. Cubs are born fully furred and with black spots on a
greyish coat. Within two weeks the cubs eyes are open and the fur on the cub’s
back begins to grow; by six weeks old the cubs have a long mantle of tan and
black fur.
The cheetah has
specialized for speed through many adaptations: It is endowed with a powerful
heart, oversized liver, and large, strong arteries. It has a small head, flat
face, reduced muzzle length allowing the large eyes to be positioned for
maximum binocular vision, enlarged nostrils, and extensive air-filled sinuses.
Its body is narrow, lightweight with long, slender feet and legs, and
specialized muscles, which act simultaneously for high acceleration, allowing
greater swing to the limbs. Its hip and shoulder girdles swivel on a flexible
spine that curves up and down, as the limbs are alternately bunched up and then
extended when running, giving greater reach to the legs. The cheetah's long and
muscular tail acts as a stabilizer or rudder for balance to counteract its body
weight, preventing it from rolling over and spinning out in quick, fast turns
during a high-speed chase. The cheetah is the only cat with short, blunt semi
non-retractable claws that help grip the ground like cleats for traction when
running. Their paws are less rounded than the other cats, and their pads are
hard, similar to tire treads, to help them in fast, sharp turns. |
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![](description.jpg) © S.
Durant, ZSL & WCS |
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![](king cheetah p.jpg) ©
A. Sliwa
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The King Cheetah
The king cheetah was first noted in Zimbabwe in 1926. In 1927, the
naturalist Reginald Innes Pocock declared it a separate species, but reversed
this decision in 1939 due to lack of evidence. In 1928, a skin purchased by
Lord Rothschild was found to be intermediate in pattern between the king
cheetah and spotted cheetah and Abel Chapman considered it to be a colour form
of the spotted cheetah. 22 such skins were found between 1926 and 1974. Since
1927, king cheetahs were reported 5 more times in the wild. |
Although strangely marked
skins had come from Africa, a live king cheetah was not photographed until 1974
in South Africa's Kruger National Park. Cryptozoologists Paul and Lena
Bottriell photographed one during an expedition in 1975. They also managed to
obtain stuffed specimens. It appeared larger than a spotted cheetah and its fur
had a different texture. There was another wild sighting in 1986 - the first
for 7 years.
By 1987, 38 specimens had been recorded, many from pelts. Its
species status was resolved in 1981 when king cheetahs were born at the De
Wildt Cheetah Center in South Africa. In May 1981, two spotted sisters gave
birth there and each litter contained one king cheetah. The sisters had both
mated with a wild-caught male from the Transvaal area (where King Cheetahs had
been recorded). Further King Cheetahs were later born at the Centre. This
mutation has been reported in Zimbabwe, Botswana and in the northern part of
South Africa's Transvaal province.
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Phylogenetic history |
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An evolutionary history of the cheetah has been
constructed by paleontologists from fossils and, more recently, by geneticists
using DNA. Present records date carnivores to the Eocene epoch, about fifty
million years ago, with the specialised family Felidae evolving in the Miocene
about twenty million years ago. In the middle Miocene, early felids began their
radiation into other cats with conical canines including the early cheetahs, Miracinonyx
and Acinonyx, during the Pliocene and Pleistocene epochs, about
eight million to twelve thousand years ago.
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The cheetah is considered one of the earliest
divergences in felid evolution, about 8.5 million years ago, compared to the
large cats of the Panthera group, which still shared a common ancestor
about 6 million years ago. The species known as Acinonyx pardinensis,
which is larger than the modern species, migrated from North America to Asia,
India, Europe, and Africa. The modern cheetah evolved into its present form
about 200,000 years ago. Genetic research has shown that today’s cheetah
populations are descendants of but a few animals that remained after the
Pleistocene era about 10,000 years ago, at which point the population
experienced a founder event generally referred to as a population bottleneck.
The cheetah somehow survived this time of mass extinction and the population
gradually increased.
The cheetah was first
classified as Felis jubatus, but early taxonomists soon realised that
the cheetah was unique from all the other cats and placed it into the monospecific
genus Acinonyx Brooks (1828), of which there is only the one species jubatus.
The translation of the cheetah’s scientific name Acinonyx jubatus is a
reference to the species’ semi-retractile pointed claws. In Greek, a means
not, kaina, means a thorn, and onus, means a claw. A more direct
translation may be non-moving claws, and jubatus, in Latin means maned,
as young cheetahs have a crest or mane on the shoulders and back. Although
seven subspecies have been identified, five subspecies are considered valid by
most taxonomists. These are Acinonyx jubatus venaticus, Acinonyx
jubatus hecki (Hilzheimer 1913), Acinonyx jubatus soemmeringii (Fitzinger
1855), Acinonyx jubatus raineyii (Heller 1913), (Schreber 1776) and Acinonyx
jubatus raddei (Hilzheimer 1913). |
Biology & life history |
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Habitat
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Cheetahs
are distributed primarily throughout the drier parts of sub-Saharan Africa with vast expanses of land where prey is
abundant. Aside from an estimated one hundred
cheetahs living in Iran, the distribution of the cheetah is now
limited to Africa. In Namibia, it has been found in a variety of habitats, including
grasslands,
savannahs,
dense vegetation,
and mountainous terrain. Ninety-five percent live on commercial farms.
They are not generally
associated with forest habitats and are absent from the Sudano-Guinean forest
savannah belt of west Africa. However, although cheetahs are most frequently
observed on open grassy plains, they also make extensive use of bush, scrub,
and open woodlands. Observations suggest that cheetahs expend more energy
hunting in open country than in cover. A mosaic of woodland and grassland is
probably preferred. Cheetahs are well adapted to living in arid environments.
They are not obligate drinkers and, in the Kalahari desert, have been estimated
to travel an average of 82 km between drinks of water. They were observed to
satisfy their moisture requirements by drinking the blood or urine of their
prey, or by eating tsama melons.
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© A.
Dickman |
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© A. Dickman
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Land tenure system |
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Males are very sociable and
group together for life, usually with the brothers from the same litter;
although if a cub is the only male in the litter then two or three lone males
may group up, or a lone male may join an existing group. These groups are
called coalitions. A coalition is six times more likely to obtain a territory than a lone male, although studies
have shown that lone males keep their territories just as long as coalitions -
four to four and a half years.
Males are very territorial. Females' home ranges can be very large and
trying to build a territory around several females' ranges is impossible to
defend. Instead, males choose the points at which several of the females' home
ranges overlap, creating a much smaller space, which can be properly defended against
intruders while maximizing the chance of reproduction. Coalitions will try
their utmost to maintain territories in order to find females with which they
will mate. The size of the territory also depends on the available resources;
depending on the part of Africa, the size of a male's territory can vary
greatly from 37 to 160 km2.
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Males
mark their territory by urinating on objects that stand out, such as trees,
logs, or termite
mounds. The whole coalition contributes to the scent. Males will attempt to
kill any intruders and fights often result in serious injury or death.
Unlike males and other
felines, females do not establish territories. Instead, the area they live in
is termed a home range. These overlap with other females' home ranges;
often it will be the sisters from the same litter or a daughter's home range
overlapping with her mother's. Females, however, always hunt alone, although
once their cubs reach the age of five to six weeks they take them along to show
them how it is done. The size of a home range depends entirely on the
availability of prey. Cheetahs in African woodlands have ranges as small as 34
km2, while in some parts of Namibia
they can reach 1,500 km2. Although there have been no studies, it
is expected that the home ranges of females in the Sahara are the
largest of all the cheetah populations.
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![](urinating.JPG) © L.Marker
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Feeding ecology |
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©
S. Durant ZSL & WCS |
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The cheetah is a carnivore,
eating mostly mammals
under 40 kilograms, including Thomson's Gazelle and Impalas. Wildebeests
and calves
are preyed upon when cheetahs hunt in groups. Guineafowl
and hares
are also hunted. While the other big cats mainly hunt by night, the cheetah is
a diurnal
hunter. It hunts usually either early in the morning or later in the evening
when it is not so hot, but there is still enough light - the cheetah hunts by vision
rather than by scent.
Prey is stalked to within 10-30 metres (30-100 ft), then chased. The chase is usually
over in less than a minute, and if the cheetah fails to make a quick catch, it
will often give up rather than waste energy.
Another reason the cheetah may
give up is because running at such high speeds puts a great deal of strain on
the cheetah's body. When sprinting, the cheetah's body temperature becomes so
high that it would be deadly to continue - this is why the cheetah is often
seen resting even after it has caught its prey. If it is a hard chase, it
sometimes needs to rest for half an hour or more. Roughly half of the chases
are successful.
The cheetah kills its prey by
tripping it during the chase, then biting it on the underside of the throat to
suffocate it, for the cheetah is not strong enough to break the necks of the gazelles
it mainly hunts. The bite may also puncture a vital artery in the neck. Then
the cheetah proceeds to devour its catch as quickly as possible before the kill
is taken by stronger predators.
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Reproduction |
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Females reach sexual maturity
within twenty to twenty-four months, and males around twelve months (although
they do not usually mate until at least three years old), and mating occurs
throughout the year. Females give birth
to up to nine cubs after a gestation period of ninety to ninety-eight days, although the
average litter size is three to five. Cubs weigh from 150 to 300 grams at birth. Unlike some
other cats, the cheetah is born with its characteristic spots. Cubs are also
born with a downy underlying fur on their necks, called a mantle, extending to
mid-back. This gives them a mane or Mohawk-type appearance. Is is thought to
camouflage the cub in dead grass and hiding it from predators; this fur is shed
as the cheetah grows older. It has been speculated that this mane gives a
cheetah cub the appearance of the Ratel, to scare away potential aggressors.
Mortality rate is very high during
the early weeks, and up to 90% of the cubs are killed during this time by
lions, hyenas or even by eagles. Cubs leave their mother between thirteen and twenty
months after birth. The cheetah can live over twenty years, but its life is
often short, for it loses its speed with old age.
Unlike males, females are
solitary and tend to avoid each other, though some mother/daughter pairs have
been known to continue for small periods of time. The cheetah has a unique,
well-structured social order. Females live alone except when they are raising
cubs and they raise their cubs on their own. The first eighteen months of a
cub's life are important - cubs learn many lessons because survival depends on
knowing how to hunt wild prey species and avoid other predators. At eighteen
months, the mother leaves the cubs, who then form a sibling,
or 'sib', group, that will stay together for another six months. At about two
years, the female siblings leave the group, and the young males remain together
for life. Life span is up to twelve years in wild, but up to twenty years in
captivity.
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©
S. Durant ZSL & WCS
![](mom and kitten.JPG)
©
S. Durant ZSL & WCS |
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Diseases
& Genetics |
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Over the past few years, the impact of infectious
diseases on endangered species has become well known. Cheetahs are known to be
very susceptible to several feline diseases, and are possibly more vulnerable
to such diseases due to the lack of heterogeneity in the population. In
addition, captive populations world-wide have been known to have a high
prevalence of unusual diseases that are rare in other species, and these
diseases impede the goal of maintaining self-sustaining populations. Although
the specific causes of these diseases are not known, the character of these
diseases implicate stress as an important underlying factor, and genetic
predisposition and diet are possible confounding factors. While it is assumed
that these diseases did not historically affect wild populations, there is
concern that these diseases may arise in wild animals that are trapped, held in
captive facilities and translocated. Additionally, there is concern that
cheetahs may transmit or acquire infectious diseases through these actions.
Diseases with high incidence
are glomerulosclerosis, amyloidosis, helicobacter associated gastritis,
veno-occlusive disease of the lever and focal palatine erosion.
Lymphoplasmacytic gastritis, glomerulosclerosis, renal amyloidosis and
veno-occlusive disease have an unusually high incidence in captive cheetah.
There is a group of neurological diseases with lower incidence such as Leukoencephalopathy, Progressive hind-limb
paralysis in adult cheetahs, Acute hind limb ataxia in cheetah cubs, Spongiform encephalopathy.
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Cheetah and humans |
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The earliest record of
the cheetah’s long association with humans dates back to the Sumerians, 3,000
BC, where a leashed cheetah, with what appears to be a hood on its head, is
depicted on an official seal. It was believed in Egyptian history that the
cheetah would quickly carry away the Pharaoh’s spirit to the Afterlife and
symbols of cheetahs have been found on many statues and paintings in royal
tombs. Cheetahs were used for hunting in Libya during the reign of the
pharaohs. Cheetahs were not hunted to obtain food, but for the challenge of
sport, known as coursing. In Italy, cheetahs were coursed during the fifth
century. Russian princes hunted with cheetahs in the 11th and 12th centuries,
and, at the same time, crusaders saw cheetahs being used to hunt gazelles in
Syria and Palestine. The best records of cheetahs having been kept by royalty,
from Europe to China, are from the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries. Cheetahs also were used for hunting in
Russia. Eighteenth and 19th century paintings indicate that the cheetah
rivalled dogs in popularity as hunting companions.
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![](cheetahs and humans.JPG)
©
A. Dickman
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During his 49-year reign as
an Indian Mogul in the 16th century, Akbar the Great had more than 39,000
cheetahs in total, which were called Khasa or the Imperial Cheetahs, and he
kept detailed records of them. However, all the cheetahs kept for hunting and
coursing purposes were taken out of the wild from free-ranging populations.
Because of this continuous drain on the wild populations, the numbers of
cheetahs declined throughout Asia. In the early 1900s, India and Iran began to
import cheetahs from Africa for hunting purposes. In Africa, the cheetah was
important to many local ethnic groups: the San hunting communities of southern
Africa ate cheetah meat for speed; traditional healers used cheetah foot bones
for fleet-footedness; and kings wore cheetah skins for dignity. These
practices, combined with exportation to other countries, contributed to the
beginning of the cheetah's decline in Africa.
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Threats |
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![](box trap.jpg) ©
L. Marker
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Decline in prey, loss of habitat, and
indiscriminate trapping and shooting as a livestock predator threaten the
survival of the cheetah throughout its range. Intraguild competition from more
aggressive predators decrease cheetah survivability in protected game reserves,
causing larger numbers of cheetahs to live outside protected areas and
therefore coming into conflict with humans. As human populations change the
landscape of Africa by increasing the numbers of livestock and fenced game
farms throughout the cheetah’s range, addressing this conflict may become the
most important factor in their conservation.
A further concern is that cheetahs breed poorly in
captivity and wild populations have continued to sustain captive ones. Until
the 1960s, most cheetahs were imported from East Africa but, as the numbers of
cheetahs decreased in this region, Namibia became the major exporter of
cheetahs. Today more than 90% of all cheetahs in captivity are descendants of
Namibian cheetahs. This additional pressure, together with ineffective captive
breeding programmes, further endanger cheetah populations.
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Viable populations may be found in less than half of
the countries where cheetahs still exist. All populations are listed on the
Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Fauna and Flora
(CITES) Appendix I and are classified as Vulnerable or Endangered by
The World Conservation Union (IUCN) (CITES 1984, CITES 1992). The largest
remaining wild population of cheetahs is found in Namibia.
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a) Deterministic factors |
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Habitat alteration |
Because of increasingly
fragmentation of habitat resulting from human development, cheetah populations
become vulnerable to inbreeding and the loss of genetic diversity. |
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Habitat removal |
The fragile semi-arid
habitat of cheetah is being degraded and in some places returning to desert.
Spreading agriculture, industries, human settlements, mining and infrastructure
has altered about 96% of the natural habitat of the I.R. of Iran. Most rural
people also raise livestock, which compete with gazelle, urial sheep and wild
goat - cheetah's main prey species. |
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Prey scarcity |
Most rural people raise
livestock, which compete with gazelle, urial sheep and wild goat - cheetah's
main prey species. Cheetahs
are killing approximately 8% of the adult Thomson's gazelle population each
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© L.
Marker |
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Human-induced mortality |
Human predation on cats involves hunting and trapping, legal and
illegal. Trophy hunting, mainly for the big cats, has declined in recent years
because of bans in many countries. Local hunting and trapping of cats is still
widespread because of their predation on livestock and just for sport. All the
spotted cats, big and lesser, have been trapped for their beautiful pelts.
Campaigns against the use of wild furs, and the growing strength of the
Convention on International Trade in Wild Species of Fauna and Flora (CITES)
have checked this onslaught.
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The vast majority of Namibia's cheetahs reside on the
commercial farmlands, where there is abundant prey-base and a lack of large
competitors, such as lions and spotted hyenas. Therefore the cheetahs are
placed in direct conflict with livestock and game farmers. Sixty percent of
Namibian ranchers do not practice any form of livestock management.
Consequently, over 10'000 cheetah are believed to have been killed between 1980
and 1991. CCF initiated different livestock protection measures, which led to a
dropping of cheetah removals by farmers. CCF
spent three years surveying livestock and wildlife farmers to identify problem
areas in livestock and wildlife management, which are leading to the cheetah’s
decline. The Namibian commercial farmers offer the greatest hope in the
struggle to sustain a free-ranging cheetah population for future generations. The research has shown that most recently farmers
have more tolerance for cheetahs and are killing less, and those that are being
killed are linked to livestock losses. More frequently farmers are calling
CCF to help them.
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© L.
Marker |
Many cheetah skins smuggled from Somalia and Ethiopia are being
sold annually in curio shops in Djibouti city.
Peddlers there offer baby cheetahs, despite a ban on trade. Cheetahs have
almost complete disappeared from Djibouti, where they were still common 10
years ago.
The demand for wild-caught adult cheetahs is a drain on populations in
several ways. For every cheetah trapped, tamed and trained successfully,
several die in the process.
The cheetah is undoubtedly one of the most outstanding
attractions for tourists visiting the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania. Of
all the predator cats, however, the cheetah is most vulnerable to tourism. They
are shy, but often occur in open habitats where they are easily found. These
factors render them susceptible to the pressures of tourism. Excessive tourists
numbers and poor wildlife observation practices can affect their hunting
success, reproductive success, and cub mortality. |
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b) Stochastic factors |
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Demographic viability |
Juvenile mortality in
cheetahs is found to be extremely high compared to other large mammals, with
approximately 72.2% of litters dying before they emerge from the lair at eight
weeks of age. An average of 83.3% of cubs alive at emergence die by adolescence
at 14 months of age, thus cheetah cubs are estimated to have only a 4.8% chance
of reaching independence at birth. Lion predation is the major source of this
mortality, although some cubs die from starvation after they are abandoned by
their mothers, or as a result of grass fires and inclement weather.
Cheetahs have suffered, and continue to suffer, high
levels of removal due to conflict with local farmers, and it is important to
understand the demography of this population in order to determine its likely
persistence. Examination of cheetahs reported live-trapped or killed by local
farmers, combined with subsequent information from radio-telemetry, allow
demographic parameters such as sex ratios, age and social structure, litter
size, interbirth intervals and survivorship to be estimated for cheetahs on
Namibian farmlands. Cub mortality is relatively low, but adult mortality is
high, particularly for males, and peaks at 5-6 years of age.
Data are known on the demography and reproductive success of cheetahs
living on the Serengeti Plains, Tanzania over a 25-year period. Average age at
independence is 17.1 months, females give birth to their first litter at
approximately 2.4 years old, interbirth interval is 20.1 months, and average
litter size at independence is 2.1 cubs. Females who survive to independence
live on average 6.2 years while minimum male average longevity is 2.8 years for
those born in the study area and 5.3 years for immigrants, with a large
proportion of males dispersing out of the Plains population. Females produce on
average only 1.7 cubs to independence in their entire lifetime and their
average reproductive rates are 0.36 cubs per year or 0.17 litters per year to
independence. Variance in lifetime reproductive success in the cheetah is
similar to that of other mammals.
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![](three cheeahs.jpg)
©
S. Durant ZSL & WCS |
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Genetic viability |
A potentially critical
factor for the long-term persistence of the cheetah is its lack of genetic
variation relative to other felids. The genetic structure of the cheetah has
received considerable attention over the past years. It has been
suggested that the genetic homogeneity could make the species more susceptible
to ecological and environmental changes. This has been interpreted in the
context of two potential risks, including the expression of recessive
deleterious alleles, and increased vulnerability to viral and parasitic
epizootics that can affect genetically uniform populations. Given the lack of
genetic diversity, monitoring the overall health of cheetah populations is an
important component of understanding and promoting long-term viability. |
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Obstacles to conservation |
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Farmers attitudes toward
cheetah removal |
Many indiscriminate
removals do seem to occur, as almost sixty percent of the farmers that do not
consider cheetahs problematic still remove cheetahs. A logical explanation to
this deals with traditional predator control attitudes common worldwide.
Predators are often eliminated weather they are perceived as a problem or not. |
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Economical needs of the
people vs. ecological requirements of the cheetah |
The farmer’s interests
are in economical gain, be it through the sale of livestock, or selling game as
trophies to foreign hunters. The
problem is that the vast majority of
Namibia's cheetahs reside on the commercial farmlands, where there is abundant
prey-base and a lack of large competitors. |
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Limited knowledge
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In many areas, especially
in the North African region, we have extremely limited
knowledge on the status of the cheetah and their prey.
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Conservation and legal status |
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Population
Status
IUCN Red List:
Vulnerable.
The
total number of cheetahs in sub-Saharan Africa has been variously estimated at
15,000 (Myers 1975), 25,000 (Frame 1984), and 9,000-12,000 (Kraus and
Marker-Kraus 1991), and a wide-ranging survey is in progress to develop a
better grasp of the cheetah’s current status. The two largest metapopulations
of cheetah are now believed to occur in east Africa (Kenya and Tanzania) and
southern Africa (Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Zambia). Density and abundance
vary widely according to environmental conditions, especially the occurrence of
suitable prey and other large predators. In the Serengeti Plains ecosystem,
cheetahs concentrate seasonally in association with migratory movements of
Thomson’s gazelle. Estimating cheetah density is complicated by their unusual
social organization. Both solitary male and female adults are semi-nomadic,
having large, overlapping home ranges of the order of 800-1,500 km2.
Coalitions of males, on the other hand, have been found (in the Serengeti) to
defend small territories of the order of 12-36 km2, but up to 150 km2.
These territories periodically hold big numbers of Thomson’s gazelle, the
favoured prey of female cheetahs, and females were often observed in the males’
territories.
The
wild cheetah is nearly extinct in Asia. Once widely distributed throughout
Asia, the cheetah has suffered a devastating decline of available habitat and
prey. A small number (100 – 200 individuals) of Asian cheetahs still survive in
small pocketed areas through Iran, and possibly in the boarding areas of
Pakistan.
Protection
Status
CITES
Appendix I. An Appendix 1 quota system was established under
CITES in 1992 for live animals and trophies, with annual quotas allocated as
follows: 150 (Namibia), 50 (Zimbabwe), 5 (Botswana).
National
legislation: fully protected over most of its range. Hunting
prohibited: Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African
Republic, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique,
Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo,
Uganda, Zaire. Trophy hunting permitted: Namibia. Zambia, Zimbabwe. No information: Chad, Sudan.
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Sources
Anonymous.
2003. Iran Cheetah Project.
Berry, H. H., Bush, M. E.,
Davidson, B., Forge, O., Fox, B., Grisham, J., Munson, L., Nowell, K.,
Marker-Kraus, L., Martenson, J. S., Hurlbut, S., Howe, M., Schumann, M.,
Shille, T., Stander, F., Venzke, K., Wagner, T., Wildt, D. E., Ellis, S., and
Seal, U. S. Editors. 1997. Population & Habitat Viability Assessment for
the Namibian Cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) and Lion (Panthera leo) Workshop
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