Looking Toward the Future

Despite the evidence that behavioral explanations for the cheetah's low reproductive rates are at least as important as genetic ones, few scientists are complacent about the cat's potential for future genetic problems. For this reason, researchers working with the Cheetah SSP are seeking to preserve whatever genetic variation the cheetah does have. Their plan is to avoid inbreeding by reducing zoos' reliance on cheetahs that have already produced many young and attempting to get offspring from cheetahs that have never bred. In November 1993, the Cheetah SSP management group met to pore over the cheetah studbook, a record of all the cheetahs in North America, which includes family trees for the captive-born animals. The group set out a master plan for the coming year's breeding efforts, choosing 20 male and 20 female cheetahs that are not closely related to most of the cats in the North American population. Because a number of cats chosen for the program are past the normal breeding age, the group plans to use techniques such as artificial insemination to help some of them reproduce.

Zoo breeding successes are extremely heartening, according to zoologist Jack Grisham of the Oklahoma City Zoo, who directs the Cheetah SSP. Grisham has even begun to believe that if zoos don't manage the size of the captive population, they'll eventually run out of room for cheetahs. Still, the captive breeding is just "icing on the cake" for the cheetah species, according to Caro. In his view, boosting populations in this way provides only a temporary stopgap to the loss of cheetahs in the wild.