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Cheetahs Heading Towards Extinction as Population Crashes (bbc.com)
The sleek, speedy cheetah is rapidly heading towards extinction according to a new study into declining numbers. From a report on BBC: The report estimates that there are just 7,100 of the world's fastest mammals now left in the wild. Cheetahs are in trouble because they range far beyond protected areas and are coming increasingly into conflict with humans. The authors are calling for an urgent re-categorisation of the species from vulnerable to endangered. Cheetahs in Asia have been essentially wiped out. A group estimated to number fewer than 50 individuals clings on in Iran. [...] In Zimbabwe, the cheetah population has fallen from around 1,200 to just 170 animals in 16 years, with the main cause being major changes in land tenure.
There are plenty of endangered animals, whatever. Also, they can't go extinct, they're being breeded in zoos everywhere.
We need new moderators. What the fuck happened to this site?
The main reason animals get extinct is human presence. We are a bigger threat to wildlife than even nuclear fallout.
When the article says changes in land tenure in Zimbabwe, that means the racist thug Mugabe seizing lands from whites, and passing it out to his political cronies, who apparently, in addition to being shitty farmers are also bad at wild life management.
The world population is leveling off but not before adding 4 billion more people in the next 50 years .... Mostly in Africa. There is not much to be done about it, the increase is mostly "population fill in" you need to watch this Hans Rosling video if you're unfamiliar with that term, too hard to explain https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FACK2knC08E
It is sad that it is apparently difficult to breed cheetahs in captivity - they need large open spaces to run and do their courtship rituals. Which is particularity bad, because they actually are one of the easier wild animals to tame, and would be fairly easy to turn into pets (and thus in no danger of extinction) if that breeding issue where solved. I know I would love a pet cheetah.
http://cheetah.org/about-the-c...
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
Also scientists also confirmed the sky is blue and water is wet.
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Between Jews, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, and Communists.
You might have to start by burning a few religious monuments down in an opposing religion's name, but after it is all done, the population will be dramatically reduced.
they are all as unique as Chinese people after Reagon reported Xerox to China.
First the healthnuts came for the potato chips, and I sighed. Then the healthnuts came for the mohicans and I was like ahhhh. Then the healthnuts came for cheetos and Ive been a raging furry mad for lesbians!
http://assets.nydailynews.com/...
You are welcome on my lawn.
For all these years I thought this was just an expression.
People who want to keep wild animals as pets are awful people. You are an awful person.
A cheetah is genetically more than 99% identical to other cheetahs because they suffered not one, but TWO population bottlenecks where the population was wiped out but for a small number of breeding pairs - the first about 100k years ago, the second about 10k years ago. This leaves them all basically as related as identical twins.
Their doom isn't necessarily humans (at least, not any more than any other large predator) it's their lack of genetic diversity that means a local population can be devastated by a single nasty disease.
They may NOT be saveable, and it's only peripherally due to humans.
-Styopa
....we realise it's better to have cheetahs than blacks ?
We need to pick a big African country, cleanse it of all blacks and turn it into an enormous wildlife preserve.
I'm completely serious, by the way.
I'm all for conservation of species, but it seems to me this is just the symptom. Save the cheetah, then what next? Many species are being driven to extinction as well. You can artificially inflate the numbers by pouring lots of money into breeding programs like the Chinese have done with pandas, but that does nothing for the underlying causes.
Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
And in the USA, 1 in 8 individuals don't get enough food; there are millions more, many of them skilled in modern technologies and tasks, who cannot find employment. Seems to me that's a pretty damned good candidate for circumstances people might sanely decide they don't want to bring offspring into.
Well, insofar as maintaining our already too-large population might be construed as a "good thing", so what if they're immigrants? What does it matter what line they were born on which side of?
What matters (outside of the bounds of xenophobic and jingoistic neurosis, of course) is what good they can do for our society, and what good they can do for themselves. Personally, I don't care what color you are or what language you speak or where you were born. If you are a positive force overall, I'm a fan. If not, and you are trying to be, I'm still a fan. If you are not, and you are not trying to be, now we're talking about someone I'd just as soon see go away.
Those idiots who foam at the mouth about "those damned immigrants" will be the first ones to complain when the cost and availability of fruits and vegetables go in inconvenient directions; when the taco truck disappears from the corner; when clothing becomes (much) more expensive, when getting the lawn mowed, the kids nannied, the ditches dug -- and many more things -- all become far more troublesome.
--fyngyrz
anon due to mod points
As the article hints, the issue here isn't really raw population, its land.
Mating for Cheetahs involves miles and miles of chasing. If they don't have that kind of grassland space available to them, there will be no more cheetahs.
This is also why they could not be domesticated (even though they are quite tamable), and cannot be bred in captivity. Zoos cannot save them. If they go in the wild, they are gone.
I showed Rosling's video to a anti-kid friend and she told me that none if it was true and that he's "pushing an agenda" (cut and paste from email).
Pretty sure he's talking about domesticating the cheetah, not just grabbing a wild cheetah and keeping it on a leash.
But cheetahs need to run, not much room in the city for them.
It's not easy being cheesy.