Wildlife biologists and scientists are doubtful whether cheetah can outrun extinction. If the population of cheetahs falls by even just 10 percent on an annual basis, then the numbers would decline by 50 percent in 15 years. Hence, breeding programs have been established in cheetah-populated areas to reverse this trend. The results seem promising in some places but not so much in others. Time will tell. However, if what the team predicts come true, then it is worth doing a wildlife safari in Kenya to watch these remarkable creatures before they get wiped out from the face of the earth.
Articles by Val Jiwa
The Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt, remarkably won the gold medal nine times at the Olympics. People often wondered how the record-breaking runner, Usain Bolt, would fare against a cheetah. The animals even have an acceleration rate rivaling that of the sports car, Lamborghini. Because cheetahs are so fast, photographing them at that speed is nearly impossible. But the National Geographic did it when its Channel conducted a virtual race between Sarah, the cheetah, and Usain Bolt. They were curious to know what would have happened if the animal took part in the 100m final of the World Championship in 2009.
Anybody involved in the study of cheetahs, the fastest sprinter in the world, would agree that pet cheetah is not a new phenomenon. Human beings have been keeping cheetahs not only as pets but also for various other reasons for thousands of years. Historical records indicate that Persian and Egyptian royalty often kept them in their palatial courts. As a result, cheetah dealers, trappers, and tamers were well paying jobs. But those times when cheetahs roamed abundantly in the African prairies and jungles have changed. Various factors brought on by both nature and humans have negatively affected its population numbers.
The wealthy Arabs in the Middle East relish in having a cheetah. They think having a cheetah makes them look important. People boast about owning these exotic pets. Cheetahs are obtained both legally and unlawfully, bought at auctions, or found in the wild. The Wildlife Trade Cheetah Conservation estimates that the illegal market for pet cheetahs in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, and Qatar provide a steady supply of 300 cubs a year. The global wildlife summit has been the most active as it tackles the pet trade mainly because the smuggling of cheetahs into the Gulf States has been increasing.
Cheetah is known as the fastest land animal. It has been in existence for around four million years. It is undoubtedly a marvel of evolution. Cheetah is not considered to belong to the ‘big cat’ family because they cannot roar due to the absence of hyoid bone in its throat. But it does belong to the Felidae family and is a close relative to bobcats, pumas, and lynxes. Therefore, it is referred to as a Lesser Cat and is the only member of the genus, Acinonyx. Cheetahs have come a long way especially in the way humans have treated them.
The global cheetah population has declined just over the past century by a staggering 90% to 7,500. However, this number was simply a guess, given the difficulty of taking an accurate census of the cheetah. The recent estimate puts the number at 6,600. During the last 18 years alone the numbers have plummeted by 30%. Occupying only 17% of their historic range, they are now extinct in 20 countries. In Kenya, there are only about 1,500 cheetahs. But a new study has found that this number is actually lower than previously thought. Even worse, the population will continue to decline.
The spots in Kenya where people discover rare birds cover a vast ecological area from the south to the coast of the country. The species such spotted are the Waxbills, the Sandpipers and the Gulls and Terns. Often gregarious in nature and colonial seedeaters, waxbills have thick, short but pointed bills. A large, diverse family of shorebirds includes the Sandpipers whose identification is not so easy as they resemble very closely with the other ocean residents. The feathers of Gulls and Terns are either gray or white with black markings on the head. They go with the order of Charadriiformes.
Nature plays a prominent role in locating and relocating the birds in the world. Many such birds have wandered into the territories of Kenya. Ornithologists and bird lovers accidentally stumble upon them and record their findings after careful research. They are the Red-footed booby, the Egyptian plover, the Northern lapwing, the Black-winged Pranticole, the European turtledove, the Short-eared owl, the Long-tailed Nightjar, the Blue-breasted Kingfisher, and the Lowland sooty boubou. Literature about these exotic and rare birds of Kenya is so scant that serious learners would have to visit a library or the museum in the country for more information.
Kenya is a birder’s paradise. The twittering of the birds is music to their ears. It is where nature turns into a school to teach the birds’ language. Observing the nesting and feeding mannerisms of these birds is a fascination that brings unexplainable delight to experts. And it is how ornithologists detect the behavioral patterns for research and academic purposes. But very often in the midst of this melody melee and theatrics, they fail to distinguish between the birds that are indigenous but rare and the ones that are foreign to Kenya brought on by direct or indirect human intervention.
Kenya has a range of more than 1,000 species of birds. It attracts biologists and field researchers who have taken ornithology as an academic study. Although Kenyan endemic birds found exclusively in the region are few and far between, there are credible documents of the sightings of each of the species. Such reports provide detailed information on important recognition features, some behavioral traits as well as distributional points of each of the species. The endemic birds of Kenya are Jackson’s Francolin, William’s Lark, Hinde’s Pied Babbler, Taita Thrush, Sharpe’s Longclaw, Clarke’s Weaver, Tana River Cisticola, Aberdare Cisticola and Sokoke Scope-Owl.