Dave Taylor's African Safari: Trophic Level IV: Large Carnivores - Cheetahs

Trophic Level IV: Large Carnivores
Cheetahs
Page 6

Large Predatory Mammals

This section presents the areas major large predators. Many of these are well known to most people and they are among the most well studied of the many species of mammals found here. Even so there are still many things to learn about them.

(see also: Appendix I:Biomass of Predators and Appendix V: Major Hunting Areas of the Serengeti-Mara Ecosystem’s Larger Predators and Appendix VII: Comparison of Serengeti-Mara Predators)

Acinonyx jubatus

Length: 110-150 cm (43-56")

Tail: 65-90 cm (26-35")

Weight: 50 kg (35-65 kg), (110 lb., 77-143 lb.)

Status: Vulnerable; protected by CITES and the African Convention; numbers declining due to habitat loss.

Habitat: Any area that supports a large population of small to medium sized antelope will support cheetah. Open woodlands, savannas and grasslands all meet the cheetah's needs provided the vegetation is not too dense or the ground cover too broken. Cheetahs like environments where there is sufficient cover for them to stalk within sprinting distance of their prey.

The presence of lions in any of these habitats will have a noticeable impact on cheetah numbers. The Serengeti-Mara would support far more cheetahs if it were not for the large numbers of lions present there. No cheetahs make the Ngorongoro Crater their permanent home simply because of the high density of lions found there. (see "Predators" below).

In the Serengeti-Mara, cheetahs prefer the open plains and the border between woodland and plains.

Food: Cheetahs thrive on small to medium-sized antelope. In the Serengeti-Mara, their preferred prey is Thomson's gazelles. They also hunt Grant's gazelles and impala on a regular basis. Wildebeest and topi calves will be taken but a spirited defense by the calf's mother will usually succeed in driving off the cat. Zebra foals and buffalo calves may be attacked but such hunts are very rare. The defense systems of these two ungulates is too intimidating for cheetahs.

Cheetahs will also eat smaller animals such as hares, ground squirrels and rodents.

The size of prey selected by the cheetah depends on the number of cheetahs in the group (see "Social System" below). A single cheetah hunts smaller prey. Groups of two to five cheetahs are able to hunt larger prey.

Cheetahs will bolt down up to 14 kilograms (31 lb.) of meat before leaving their kill. They never return to a kill and will not scavenge. Lions, spotted hyenas, wild dogs and even vultures are all known to force cheetahs from their food. Cheetahs lose more than 10% of their kills to other predators.

Cheetahs are diurnal hunters. They are built for speed. Unlike other cats, cheetahs lack retractable claws. They need the extra traction to give them more speed. They rely on running their prey down rather than ambushing it the way leopards do. Their top speed is 112 kilometers per hour (70 miles per hour). They try to get to within 50 meters (50 yards) before starting the chase. If the prey is not caught within 300 meters (300 yards), it will escape. After running that far, a cheetah's body overheats and its lungs cannot take in enough oxygen. It must rest.

Cheetahs rarely reach their top speed during a chase. Few chases exceed 64 kilometers per hour (40 miles per hour). Gazelles cannot outrun a cheetah but they are able to make sudden abrupt turns that the cheetah cannot match. If a gazelle manages to make three or four such turns, it will usually escape.

Cheetahs target one member of the herd and chase it, often passing by other animals. It is assumed that the cheetah somehow spots a weakness in its victim but with Thomson's gazelles it has not always been easy to say what that weakness might have been. Apparently healthy animals are often killed.

Cheetahs bring down their prey by either tripping it or knocking it over. The sudden fall may break the prey's neck, killing it instantly. If the prey survives the fall, the cheetah clamps down on its throat, suffocating it.

Feeding

Once dead, the prey is dragged to the nearest cover. Hunting during the day when lions and hyenas are resting helps avoid conflict with these other predators. However, the cheetah is a nervous feeder and constantly looks around for danger. Once it has rested and caught its breath, it will begin to feed. A fully fed cheetah can go for two to five days without feeding. Females with young cubs must kill more often. One cheetah killed 31 gazelles and one hare in 35 days. Cheetahs can go four days without water and up to 10 days in drier areas, provided it has melons to eat.

(It is not unusual for cheetahs to climb up on something to survey the surrounding country for possible victims. In the Serengeti-Mara, tourists have been both pleased and surprised to find their vehicle used as a vantage point by resident cheetahs that have come to regard safari cars as part of the landscape.)

Social System: Cheetahs have often been portrayed as living alone much like leopards do. Today, we know that cheetahs have a much more complex social life than any cat other than lions.

Female cheetahs leave their litter-mates when they have their first estrus. This happens when they are around one and a half years old. The female leaves her brothers to find a mate that is unrelated to her.

She will not seek the company of another female and she will spend the rest of her life alone except when she has cubs or when briefly accompanied by a male during estrus.

Her brothers do not separate. They will stay together for a long time, perhaps until the end of their lives.

In the Serengeti, 40% of male cheetahs live in pairs, 19% in trios. Known as coalitions, these groups of male cheetahs may number up to five or be as small as one. Most, but not all, are made up of brothers that left their mother when they were between 17 and 23 months old.

Unlike lion coalitions, male cheetahs have a distinct dominance order. One male is dominant and monopolizes most mating opportunities. The second or third male rarely gets an opportunity to breed. Why, then, stay with the coalition?

Breeding males are territorial. In the Serengeti, only 4% of all single males succeed in holding onto a territory. Even then, they hold their space for only a short period; perhaps four months. Pairs hold territories on average for 7.5 months; trios for 22 months. Larger coalitions last even longer.

The size of the territory also increases with the size of the coalition and will overlap the ranges of more females. Territories for both males and females show quite a range of size from 50 to 1 000 kilometers square (19-386 square miles). Males mark their territory by urine spraying termitaries, trees or rocks. They also mark territories with feces and occasionally by claw-raking. Cheetahs, regardless of their sex, follow the Thomson’s gazelle migration when they move out of their area.

Coalitions are also able to hunt larger prey than a single male can. This is another benefit of group living. Being number two in a coalition offers much more opportunity than being a single male. There is always a small chance of mating and a much better chance of eating regularly.

Behavior: Cheetahs will mate year round but the peak breeding season is just after the rainy season.

After mating, the female goes her own way. Ninety to ninety-five days later, she will seek a hidden spot to give birth to her cubs. There will be about 18 months between one litter and the next.

A typical litter consists of three or four babies (range 1 to 8). The newborns weigh 150 to 300 grams (5.2 to 10.5 ounces). They are blind but can crawl to their mother's teats. When they are about 10 days old, their eyes open. By the time they are a little over two weeks old, they can walk and by 20 days they have their milk teeth.

Mother cheetahs move their young cubs frequently, sometimes every other day.

When they are a month and a half old, the mother begins to lead them to kills. She will stand guard while the cubs feed. From that time, the cubs follow their mother everywhere. Like all young cubs, they are playful and constantly romp and chase. They seem totally unaware of their mother's actions and will often spoil a hunt by drawing attention to themselves and their mother.

When they are three months old, they are fully weaned and the mother will leave them further behind, out of the way of her hunts. They will either follow slowly or wait for her to call them.

At a kill, all cheetahs (adults, coalitions or mothers with offspring) feed quickly and quietly. There is no squabbling over food. After feeding, the mother licks the cubs' faces clean.

When cubs reach six months of age, their mother will bring them a live fawn or rabbit. She releases the prey and allows her cubs to practice hunting and killing. By the time they are a year old, the cubs will be capturing hares and fawn on their own. By the time they are 15 months old, they are able to hunt totally on their own.

Predators: Lions will systematically search out and kill cheetah cubs if they sense a den. In one study, 67% of cheetah cubs that died while in the den lost their lives to predators. Deaths due to predation increased once they left the den. A cheetah cub has only a 1 in 20 chance of surviving to adulthood in the Serengeti. Cheetahs have no defense against these predators and the mother will be lucky to escape with her life. Adult cheetahs can easily outrun lions but an injured cheetah stands little chance of survival.

Spotted hyenas will kill cheetah cubs if they come across them.

Leopards and Maasai dogs also kill cubs.

Cubs sometimes fall victim to large eagles and other birds of prey.

There is little doubt that the increased numbers of wildebeest have had an indirect effect on the cheetah population. In the early 1960s, when wildebeest numbers were just beginning their spectacular growth, lion numbers on the plains around Seronera hovered around 25. At that time, cheetahs were more common. As the wildebeest numbers grew, so too did the lions’, reaching a high of perhaps 250.

As a direct result of the increased number of lions, survival rates of cheetah cubs fell.

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Dave Taylor's African Safari - Book 5: Trophic Level IV: Large Carnivores (Standard Version)
Copyright � 1999 Dave Taylor & James Cash