num_pages: 80
description:  Since the year 1900 cheetah footprints quickly dwindled in African dirt as the species plummeted from more than 100000 to fewer than 10000. At the Cheetah Conservation Fund's (CCF) African headquarters in Namibia Laurie Marker and her team save these stunning swift and slender creatures from extinction. Since the organization's start in 1990 they've rescued more than 900 cheetahs most of whom have been returned to the wild. But this arduous challenge continues. For most African livestock farmers cheetahs are the last thing they want to see on their properties. In the 1980s as many as 19 cheetahs per farmer died each year. Cheetahs were considered vermin--but in learning more about this magnificent species we know this is far from true. Today CCF acts as a liaison between the farmers and the cheetahs in order to promote cohabitation in an ecosystem that cannot thrive without the existence of the precious and predatory cheetah. On a wild ride through the African wilderness--sometimes sniffing out scents left in the dirt--Sy Montgomery and Nic Bishop join CCF in studying the cheetah's ecological genetic and behavioral patterns in order to chase down the fastest animal on land and save the species--before it is too late.
language: English
title: Chasing Cheetahs: The Race to Save Africa's Fastest Cat
publisher: Clarion Books