Page 25 - BBC Wildlife Volume 36 #05

But it seems there’s an unequal balance when living
with siblings, which depends on gender. “On the face of
it, adolescent males gain most by pairing up with their
sisters,” says Sarah Durant. This is because they rely on
their sisters to do more of the hunting. “On the other
hand, there appears to be no overall benefits or costs to
females pairing up with their brothers,” she continues.
It could be that, while it is more dangerous to do most
of the hunting, the females compensate for this with the
extra protection they get from their brothers.
Once female cheetahs become fertile, generally at 18–
24 months old, they break apart from the group to live on
their own. This leaves the brothers to form a ‘coalition’,
which is a bit like a bachelor pride of male lions.
Coalition: Sean Crane/Minden/FLPA; cubs: Suzi Eszterhas/Minden/FLPA fight off solitary predators. This may help explain why Today there could be as few as
Coalitions of males are more likely to defend territories
and usually are in better condition than lone males. Like
adolescent groups, a male coalition is also more able to
HOW CHEETAHS
some coalitions are formed of non-related cheetahs, since
HAVE DECLINED
the benefits of living in a group outweigh the costs.
Like Hifi and Sam, most cheetah coalitions comprise
just two males, but it’s not uncommon to find three.
7,100 cheetahs left in the wild,
Rarely, four males club together. “Back in the 1990s, we
according to research published
once knew of a coalition of five cheetahs in the Serengeti,”
in 2017. The species occupies just
says Sarah, who has long studied the species in East Africa.
10 per cent of its historic range in
“But it proved to be unstable. The males split up.”
Africa and Asia, and nearly seven
Bachelor cheetahs do become extremely attached to one
another, though. When resting, they are often seen lying
in every 10 cheetahs live outside
protected areas such as national
parks, so are vulnerable to illegal
persecution, accidental poisoning
and habitat loss. Scientists
involved in the study believe the
cheetah should be uplisted from
Vulnerable to Endangered on the
IUCN’s Red List to indicate the
increasing danger it faces.