Modest Conservation Efforts On Behalf of Free-living Cheetahs

Unfortunately, few conservation efforts are directed at free-living cheetahs. The most well-known was launched in 1990 by a husband-wife team, conservationists Daniel Kraus and Laurie Marker-Kraus of the National Zoo, who now live in Namibia. This nation on the southwest coast of Africa hosts the world's largest concentration of surviving cheetahs, perhaps as many as 2,500. However, 95 percent of the cats live outside Namibia's reserves and thus come into direct conflict with human beings. The Krauses try to persuade skeptical farmers to ward off cheetahs rather than shoot them when the cats attack their livestock. The conservationists suggest, for instance, that farmers keep cows with vulnerable calves in corrals, or that they use aggressive animals such as horned steers, hard-kicking donkeys, guard dogs, or even baboons to guard their herds against the easily frightened cheetah.

These efforts may buy the cheetah a little more time. It is too early, though, to tell whether biologists will win for wild cheetahs the kind of security that captive cheetahs seem finally to have grasped.