Popular culture
Movies:
Duma (2005)
Duma is a 2005 American family drama adventure film about a young South African boy's friendship with an orphaned cheetah from a story by Carol Flint and Karen Janszen, set in the country of South Africa and based on How It Was with Dooms by Carol Cawthra Hopcraft and Xan Hopcraft. It was distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, Gaylord Films and C.O.R.E., directed by Carroll Ballard (director of The Black Stallion and Fly Away Home), produced by Gaylord Films, Warner Bros., John Wells Productions, Pandora Pictures, Stacy Cohen, E.K. Gaylord II, Kristin Harms, Hunt Lowry and John Wells, written by Karen Janszen and Mark St. Germain, edited by T.M. Christopher, cinematographed by Werner Maritz with music by George Acogny and John Debney and starring Alexander Michaletos, Eamonn Walker, Campbell Scott and Hope Davis. The film was theatrically released on April 22, 2005 by Warner Bros. Pictures, Gaylord Films and C.O.R.E.. The film went on receiving very positive reviews from critics and it earned $994,790 on a $12 million budget. The film won the Family Feature Film at the Genesis Awards in 2006. The film was rated PG for mild adventure peril. Duma was released on DVD on May 16, 2006 by Warner Bros. Entertainment.
Books:
Tomorrow’s Sphinx
Two unusual black cheetahs share a mental link, one cat coming from the past to reveal scenes from his life with the young pharaoh Tutankhamen, and one struggling to survive in a future world ravaged by ecological disaster.
Documentaries:
Cheetah: Against All Odds
In the Serengeti cheetahs live edgy lives. Females with cubs must hunt for food and if left alone their offspring are prone to the cruelty of more dominant predators. Even scavengers can abuse this slim feline built for speed. Cheetahs are the most agile but also the most defenseless of the big cats. Two cheetah mothers, both with different fate, raise their cubs against all the odds. Does know-how count or are they both at the mercy of pure chance?
Five male cheetahs and one female... wherever she goes her entourage follows lured by her readiness to mate. She's in estrus but she's no pushover. There's tension among the coalition of five but the female and suitors stay together sometimes for several days before she's ready to mate. As the subordinate males watch and wait, the dominant male cheetah moves in.
The female acts like any other feline during this period and if the pairing is successful in three months she'll give birth to a litter of five or six. Females with cubs search out hiding places in their territory to keep their young safe from predators. At any sign of danger or discovery they'll immediately move their cubs. Thick vegetation provides sanctuary and cheetah cubs are well camouflaged, but even so they're not allowed to wander far. She has five cubs and she'll need good luck and substantial skills to raise all of her offspring.
Another female's home range is farther out into the open plains. Termite mounts are excellent vantage points from where both danger and prey can be spotted. She too has a big litter. Mortality in young cheetahs is high. Although females give birth to up to six cubs, nine out of ten fail to reach adulthood. Raising four cubs to over a month old is significant maternal achievement.
Articles:
Cheetahs in Danger of Extinction, Researchers Say
The cheetah, as swift as it is in the hunt, will not be able to outrun the threats to its survival without new conservation efforts, according to an international team of researchers who reported their findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
They found that the threat to cheetahs, which now number about 7,000 worldwide, had been underestimated because of a focus on groups of the cats living in protected areas like parks and refuges. The team called for the International Union for Conservation of Nature to change the cheetah’s status from vulnerable to endangered, indicating the serious danger for the species.
The Wildlife Conservation Society, the Zoological Society of London and Panthera led the study, and many other conservation groups participated. Sarah M. Durant, a conservation scientist affiliated with the wildlife and zoological societies, and the lead author of the report, says the heart of the problem is that three-quarters of the territory where the cats live in Africa and Asia is unprotected. In those areas, the cheetahs suffer from loss of habitat, the animals they prey on are often hunted for bushmeat, and young cats are captured for sale as pets.
The possibility of precipitous decline in those areas is clear, Dr. Durant said. The report cites the case of Zimbabwe, which lost 85 percent of its cheetahs from 1999 to 2015. The number of cats dropped to no more than 170 from about 1,200.
The major difficulty in cheetah conservation is that the animals range across large expanses of terrain, crossing the boundaries of refuges and nations. A dense population of cheetahs, Dr. Durant said, would be two animals for every 38 square miles. The lowest concentration of the cats found, she said, was one per 1,500 square miles. And they share the land with “some of the most marginalized people in the world,” poor farmers and herders, she said.
The reclassification of the cats as endangered is one step, Dr. Durant said. But a whole new approach to their conservation is necessary, she proposed, saying that incentives must be provided to people to protect the cheetah across national and regional boundaries.
Dr. Durant suggested that the economic benefits of ecotourism and direct rewards for reducing poaching could be possible incentives. “I’m not pretending this is simple,” she said. “But I think we have no choice if we’re going to protect a species like this.”
Cheetah misrepresented:
He Just Wanted To Film Cheetahs, But The Animals Had A Better Idea
Wildlife photographer and filmmaker Boris von Schoenebeck was in for quite the surprise when he traveled to the Serengeti region of Tanzania to work on a wildlife film about cheetahs. Instead of filming the majestic cats from a distance, the feline subjects decided to mug for the camera up-close and personal.
Over the course of filming, two cheetahs became regular visitors to the crew's van, becoming comfortable enough to climb on top of the vehicle and sun themselves. Boris believes that the cheetahs were a mother and son duo, who enjoyed being on the "higher ground" of the van to survey the Tanzanian plains.
The cheetahs seemed fairly relaxed and curious about the new visitors and their equipment.
The cheetahs often laid down and relaxed on the roof of the car, totally at ease with the camera crew.
At one point the young male even became interested in the GoPro that Boris was using, and gave it a swat before using it as a temporary chew toy.
"It was really special that they were so close - within touching distance - because normally we're looking at them, like, 300 meters away from us," Boris said of the experience.
While the footage is remarkable, it's important to be cautious with big cats, as Susan Bass, of Big Cat Rescue, explained to The Dodo. "We don't believe it is appropriate for big cats to become so accustomed to people," says Susan, who feels that the video misrepresents cheetahs to viewers. "Filming big cats without a barrier and showing them to behave almost tamely sends viewers the wrong message that big cats are safe to be around. If/when one of the cheetahs approaches a person in the future and scratches or bites the person, it will be the cheetah that pays the price."
You can watch the full amazing cheetah encounter below: