The cheetah can run from 50-80 MPH.  It’s synonymous with speed, which is where many people stop thinking about them.  Unfortunately, they’re also very endangered.  I remember being told that this was because they suffered from a lot of inbreeding, which is what I stuck with for a while.  Yet, you have to wonder at some point why they are in that position.  What caused cheetahs to have such a limited gene pool?

Well, humans:

• Poaching and hunting, including cubs being sold as exotic pets.
• Habitat destruction
• Killed by farmers because cheetahs can’t thrive in reserves.  The reason for this is because reserves have condensed populations, the cheetahs would end up being ‘trapped’ with larger predators who kill their cubs.  This would be lions, leopards, and hyenas.  So, cheetahs mostly live in unprotected areas, which means they’re threatened by farmers protecting their livestock and poachers.

Something to consider is that while cheetahs are ‘big cats’, they’re the smallest of the entire group.  They’re the only big cats who purr like smaller ones.  They’re built for speed instead of power like lions, leopards, tigers, jaguars, and cougars.  Cheetahs are very anxious animals, which is why many found in zoos have emotional support dogs that they train with.  So, they are ‘big cats’ with a lot of challenges.

Go to the CHEETAH CONSERVATION FUND for a lot more information.  I’m only doing overviews here and showing the species breakdowns.

There are 4 subspecies of cheetah . . . Hard to tell the difference, but here we go:

Southeast African Cheetah

ESTIMATED POPULATION: 6,000

Northeast African Cheetah

ESTIMATED POPULATION: 950 (Big drop there)

Northwest African Cheetah

ESTIMATED POPULATION: 250

Asiatic Cheetah

POPULATION: 12 . . . Yes . . . 12

Looked for two videos to share here.  The first one is going to have a little blood since it’s a cheetah hunting a gazelle.  The video has some cool cheetah facts though.  The other is cheetah cubs.