Cheetahs

For two years, Chester Zoo has supported the N/a’an ku sê Carnivore Research Project in Namibia. This project aims to reduce livestock-carnivore conflicts.

Research has shown that cheetahs are responsible for less than 5% of predator related livestock losses. However, despite this, they are still perceived by farmers to be a major threat to livestock.  

The project is gathering data on cheetahs living on Namibian farmland to determine the cheetah densities and home ranges and find out where the conflicts occur. Each cheetah is fitted with GPS tracking collars as seen in these photographs.  The project has already had success, with the collars providing evidence that three male cheetahs were not involved in recent livestock predation. 

As part of this project, Chester Zoo has also been involved in developing a new technique to identify cheetahs in the wild from their paw prints through the footprint identification technique (FIT).  This technique uses digital images of the footprints to build a databank allowing the cats to be indentified in a non intrusive way.

Photographs courtesy of N/a’an ku sê Carnivore Research Project.