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

When researchers mapped almost 100,000 square kilometers of South Africa, or nearly 40,000 square miles, they only found 83 mature adults. They called their project the Free-Roaming Cheetah Census, and it’s the most comprehensive survey of cheetahs ever conducted in the region. The cheetahs that inhabit the unprotected areas here move naturally across borders, going between South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, and Zimbabwe. But farming, construction, development, and fences are making it harder for them to move around. Cheetahs need vast connected landscapes to survive. If they don’t mix with other cheetah groups, their genetic pool can be lost. There’s another big challenge for these animals: farmers. They sometimes kill cheetahs, because they believe cheetahs kill their livestock. But the researchers found that cheetahs hunt mostly wild prey. The species is currently listed as vulnerable, but the census suggests they should be reclassified as endangered in South Africa.This article was originally published on Mongabay