This is a South African cheetah, and it’s in trouble

Researchers surveyed almost 100,000 square kilometers of unprotected land across South Africa and the cheetah's cross-border range into Botswana, Namibia, and Zimbabwe, calling it the Free-Roaming Cheetah Census, the most thorough count of its kind in the region. They found 83 mature adults.

The cheetahs need large connected territory to keep their gene pool mixed, but farms, construction, and fences are increasingly cutting that territory into pieces. Farmers also kill cheetahs believing they prey on livestock, though the researchers found the cats hunt mostly wild game.

The species is currently classified as vulnerable, but the census authors say the numbers now support reclassifying it as endangered in South Africa.

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