Cheetahs are the fastest land hunters, but they are built for speed – and do not possess any sort of battle-physique, like the smaller, more robust and therefore, stronger adult leopard.

So, the cheetah’s svelte and athletic form looks beautiful but proves to be pretty useless when they have to defend their kill against predators, like the muscular spotted, striped and brown hyenas, or powerful lions or an opportunistic leopard.

At times, they do try to put up a fight, but must often walk away. They prefer to abandon their kill to the far more menacing predators that are also trying to survive, than suffer great injuries or be killed. This is not a great outcome for the famished cheetah, sensible to a degree but not great, especially a mother requiring food to produce milk for her young cubs, or also hunting for her starving, waiting and weaned cubs That tired and hungry mother might have gone without eating and restoring vital energy for about 6 days and now the greatly weakened cheetah is forced to try again -- with a far less success rate, more like close to zero. Before the growing and crushing threat of habitat loss strangling the life out of them, cheetahs held a chance because that scenario hardly occurred, but now they are forced into smaller areas – forcing them to ’bump’ into the larger predators far too often and far too easily.

Vulnerable cheetahs cannot cope. They are unable to survive these unnatural encounters – directly or indirectly and are therefore one of the most endangered big cats padding carefully along the surface of our planet and facing the great threat of extinction. Some ‘experts’ say, that is nature’s way. Let them be or the situation they have been forced into – do not interfere with nature… Blah, blah, blah. Hello, you dope! We have already done so, and these are the consequences of human interference/actions. The wilds are no longer places, or offer situations, of divine nature in too many areas.

We have seen to that. We are responsible for that largely irreparable destruction and are now obligated to rectify where we can and offer relief, lost/stolen refuge and a fair fighting chance at survival to the innocent victims we have created and are still creating. We are making them suffer, and for what? The natural balance has and is being disrupted and severely so in some areas – by us and in the end, we will be the main victims and sufferers.

As I type, thankfully, some caring and far-sighted and responsible humans recoqnise that growing problem and are passionately and effectively trying to restore and rectify that near-sighted imbalance. Now, imagine this world without wild cheetahs or any fauna and flora. I would, by far, prefer to be remembered for saving a species threatened by the huge and growing problem of habitat loss than say, building an envious and impressive hotel or farm and thereby, often adding fuel to the fire. Would you not share that same ideal?