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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.

11 of 120 comments (clear)

  1. Re:What does this have to do with tech? by darthsilun · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

  2. Re:So overpopulation is not an issue? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

  3. Cheetahs have low genetic diversity by haruchai · · Score: 4, Informative

    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

    --
    Pain is merely failure leaving the body
  4. Re:What does this have to do with tech? by ZorinLynx · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  5. Re:So overpopulation is not an issue? by Stephan+Schulz · · Score: 3, Informative

    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" .

    --

    Stephan

  6. Re:What does this have to do with tech? by darthsilun · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  7. "Cheetahs never prosper" by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 4, Funny

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

  8. Re:So overpopulation is not an issue? by DreadCthulhu · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  9. Re:So overpopulation is not an issue? by MightyMartian · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

    --
    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  10. Re:Meh by MightyMartian · · Score: 3, Funny

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

    --
    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  11. Re:Meh by Vegan+Cyclist · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "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.