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.

Comments

So overpopulation is not an issue?

[Quakeulf]

The main reason animals get extinct is human presence. We are a bigger threat to wildlife than even nuclear fallout.

Re:So overpopulation is not an issue?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd like to add euthanasia, universal abortion, one-child laws and forced age limits to that as well.

Everyone get on your high horse and mod me down into oblivion, but you know damn well you want to see the world population knocked down a few billion for the benefit of the planet.

Re:So overpopulation is not an issue?

[DreadCthulhu]

Start sending lots of birth control devices (condoms, IUDs, birth control shots, ect) to Africa (where most of the world's population growth is going on), and start some education/propaganda efforts to convince them that having one or two kids per woman will result in a higher quality life for them. As it stands now, most estimates are that Africa will have 4 billion people by 2100, versus the 1 billion they have now. I don't see much of the African megafauna serving that much of a population boom.

Re:So overpopulation is not an issue?

[Stephan Schulz]

Start sending lots of birth control devices (condoms, IUDs, birth control shots, ect) to Africa...

To quote Christopher Hitchens: "[The cure to poverty is] colloquially called the empowerment of women" .

Re:So overpopulation is not an issue?

[DreadCthulhu]

Africa is where most of the population growth is coming from, so that is where it makes sense to focus efforts on awareness of birth control, and get people to chose quality of children over quantity of children. China, for example, doesn't need any additional birth control programs since their birth rate is already below replacement level. The UN estimates China's population will decline from its current 1.4 billion to 1 billion by 2100. The UN also estimates India will grow from 1.3 billion now to 1.6 billion by 2100. By contrast, Africa is estimated to grow from its current 1 billion people to over 4 billion by 2100.

Re:So overpopulation is not an issue?

[MightyMartian]

A fair number of posters here despise women, and view anyone who advocates for female empowerment as an SJW who needs to be derided, trolled, threatened with rape, or any other mechanism possible to silence anyone with a vagina.

Re:So overpopulation is not an issue?

[khallow]

I guess you don't realize that the world economy is the driver for population reduction right now. Every developed world country has negative population growth of its native population. Women working and greater wealth is the universal answer to overpopulation. And the world economy delivers that.

Re:What does this have to do with tech?

[darthsilun]

The word you're looking for is "bred". They're being bred in zoos everywhere.
They may be being bred in zoos, but that's not a healthy situation for the species.
I recently reread Clarke's "Rendezvous with Rama" (I liked it as a teenager, but thought it was pretty crappy all these years later.) But I digress.
One notable thing though in the story is the idea of capping human population to one billion. I don't know if one billion is the right number, but it does make me wonder if there isn't some merit to the idea.

Cheetahs have low genetic diversity

[haruchai]

http://cheetah.org/about-the-c...

About 12,000 years ago, a mass extinction event occurred that eliminated 75% of the world’s large mammal species. Fortunately, a handful of cheetahs managed to survive this extreme extinction event and were able to restore the world’s population of cheetahs.

This event caused an extreme reduction of the cheetah’s genetic diversity, known as a population bottleneck, resulting in the physical homogeneity of today’s cheetahs. Poor sperm quality, focal palatine erosion, susceptibility to the same infectious diseases, and kinked tails characteristic of the majority of the world’s cheetahs are all ramifications of the low genetic diversity within the global cheetah population

Re:Cheetahs have low genetic diversity

[Solandri]

Third time's the charm.

A genome study concluded that cheetahs experienced two genetic bottlenecks in their history, the first about 100,000 years ago and the second about 12,000 years ago, greatly lowering their genetic variability. These bottlenecks may have been associated with migrations across Asia and into Africa (with the current African population founded about 12,000 years ago), and/or with a depletion of prey species at the end of the Pleistocene.

As cool as cheetahs are, it would seem their genetic design is just not a very good one. While there was a mass extinction event about 12k years ago, it was mostly limited to Australia and the Americas. Africa has retained well over half its large mammal species through both extinction events approx 120k and 10k years ago. In other words, the cheetah appears to have problems coping with events which the great majority of other large African mammal species survived. The morphologically similar American cheetah (which is suspected to be the reason why American pronghorns are so damned fast) also went extinct. Suggesting that from an evolutionary standpoint their design is simply not a very good one, and extinction may be the inevitable judgement of Nature.

Re:What does this have to do with tech?

[ZorinLynx]

You don't have to cull anyone. Just encourage people to have less kids.

And STOP SOCIALLY OSTRACIZING PEOPLE WHO DECIDE NOT TO HAVE KIDS. Especially women. They're doing the world a favor and you have people calling them "selfish" or treating them as second class citizens for not joining the parental cult.

My girlfriend and are voluntarily childfree and get bullshit like this from time to time.

And no offense to parents who don't behave this way. Ya'll are awesome. There's just way too many who do.

Re:What does this have to do with tech?

[darthsilun]

In this country, i.e. the USA, we could stop giving tax exemptions for more than two children. I don't know how other countries structure their taxes.
If you want to have a large family, fine, but you don't get a tax advantage for doing it.

Re:What does this have to do with tech?

[CODiNE]

Oh yeah the looks they give you.
I suppose deep inside they feel like it devalues their life choices. Some can barely fathom it. "But WHY??" Yes why give up the most meaningful thing in YOUR life? Because it's mine, and I find meaning elsewhere.
(And I don't think a kid will save my marriage ;-)

trophy cucks

[PopeRatzo]

http://assets.nydailynews.com/...

Re:trophy cucks

[Holi]

Yeeeaaah, that's a leopard.

Re:trophy cucks

[PopeRatzo]

Yeeeaaah, that's a leopard.

Shh. The guide told them it was a cheetah.

"Cheetahs never prosper"

[Applehu Akbar]

For all these years I thought this was just an expression.

Re:Meh

[MightyMartian]

Thank goodness! Now we can get back to destroying large areas of land populated by wild animals!

Re:Meh

[Vegan Cyclist]

"and it's only peripherally due to humans"

Not quite, if humans were out of the equation, they'd probably be doing a lot better, and their limited genetic diversity would probably continue to grow. We've most certainly limited their potential and influenced their chances of survival negatively. Yes, the cards were stacked against them, and humans have burned most of the deck to boot.