Cheetah in fight for survival

WHEN a cheetah sprints, there is nothing on Earth that can touch it. Yet now the cheetah is racing towards extinction. Today there are just 7 100 in the wild, a figure that has halved since 1975.

Over the next 15 years, that may be further reduced by 53%, according to a Zoological Society of London (ZSL) report.

Lead author of the report Dr Sarah Durant fears there are countries where whole cheetah populations will be wiped out this year.

Today, the cheetah occupies just 9% of its historical range, confined predominantly to southern Africa.

While the cheetah should survive the next 12 months, other species will not be so lucky.

A major study released by the ZSL and WWF (World Wildlife Fund) in October revealed the global number of wild animals is set to fall two-thirds by 2020.

Animal populations plummeted by 58% between 1970 and 2012, with losses set to reach 67% over the next three years.

Destruction of wild habitats, hunting and pollution are all to blame. A “red list” of endangered species compiled by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) features 82 954 animals and plants, with almost a third threatened with being wiped out completely.

The world’s last three northern white rhinos remain under 24-hour armed guard in Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya. The two females and a male were transferred from a Czech zoo in 2009 with another male, which died in 2014.

The world’s smallest porpoise, the vaquita, may also vanish this year. Only 60 individuals are left in the Gulf of California. China’s Yangtze river dolphin is already feared gone.

There’s also great apes.

Four out of six species are now critically endangered: the eastern gorilla, western gorilla, Bornean orangutan and Sumatran bad news for orangutan.

But last year brought better news for giant pandas, as the animal was downgraded from “endangered” to “vulnerable”, thanks to a population rebound in China, after decades of work by conservationists.

Latest estimates suggest the overall population is now 2 060, though that number could fall again, as climate change scientists predict more than a third of its bamboo habitat will be wiped out in 80 years.

In Britain, the annual State of Nature report listed 1 199 species on the red list.,

A biodiversity professor at the University of Northampton, Jeff Ollerton, said: “Most extinct species still occur on the European continent and could be reintroduced if appropriate habitats were found.”

But creating enclosed spaces for nature, he admitted, is not enough. Rather, humans need to develop better ways of coexisting with animals. — The Sunday Telegraph