The ‘authoritative’ Red List of Threatened Species is flawed and opens the door to trophy hunting

IUCN Red List Categories

The Red List should be called “Red Lost”, they are so hopeless. At last, the experts have decided that the so-called ‘authoritative’ IUCN Red List of Threatened Species is behind the curve in assessing how endangered iconic species are to extinction. The “Red List” is a vitally important organisation in conservation. It is they …

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When Namibian farmers avoided cheetah ‘hubs’ they reduced livestock losses by 86%

Cheetah hangout - cheetah hub

NEWS AND COMMENT: This is a common sense and effective approach to substantially reducing the problem of cheetahs killing livestock in Namibia. It’s the first time I’ve seen this approach taken. Conflict between predators like the cheetah and farmers is a constant problem in Africa and it leads to the death of the predator because the farmers retaliate to protect their livestock so they poison or kill the cheetah in anyway they can. It’s about protecting their livelihood, so we can understand the attitude.

Cheetah hangout - cheetah hub
Cheetah hangout – cheetah hub. Camera trap photograph: Leibniz-IZW Cheetah Research Project via Associated Press

A study published on December 7, 2020 called Communication hubs of an asocial cat are the source of a human-carnival conflict and a carnivore conflict and key to its solution has reported that if farmers know where cheetahs congregate in what the researchers describe as “hubs” they can avoid them and farm their livestock elsewhere. When this happens the cheetahs prey on animals other than livestock and they found that livestock losses were reduced by 86%. It is a brilliant result.

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Paranoid Iranian government locked up cheetah conservationists as US and Israeli spies

Iranian cheetahs

The Iranian government is generally paranoid nowadays. They think that everyone is spying on them, looking for ways to undermine the country. They hate America and Israel and their blood is boiling for violence. Trump makes it worse. Wildlife conservation suffers due to the follies of humankind. Where does it leave cheetah conservation in …

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Something is wrong if one species can drive all other species off the planet

If you believe in God, he/she got it wrong. If you believe in evolution and nature, it got it wrong too. One species, the human, is driving all other species off the planet starting with the most beautiful and most rare. I know a bit about wild cat conservation and world cat population numbers. …

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Errors in Estimated Number of Cheetahs

Africa’s cheetah population has always been estimated. I keep saying this about cat population numbers. The same estimates apply to feral and stray domestic cats too. The word “estimate” means we don’t know. In fact, Africa’s cheetah population may be a lot lower than thought. The estimates on population size have been dismissed as …

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