{"id":1075,"date":"2017-05-31T11:45:38","date_gmt":"2017-05-31T10:45:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/barbarylion\/?p=1075"},"modified":"2017-05-31T16:02:48","modified_gmt":"2017-05-31T15:02:48","slug":"decline-of-the-cats-the-precipice-is-nearer-than-we-think","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/barbarylion\/2017\/05\/31\/decline-of-the-cats-the-precipice-is-nearer-than-we-think\/","title":{"rendered":"Decline of the cats – the precipice is nearer than we think"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>In 1970 there were nearly 40,000 tigers. In the late 1990s this was estimated to be 5,000 – 7,000. Today there are less than 4000.<\/p>\n

The global cheetah population has declined startlingly to today’s count of just 7,100 individuals, confined to 9% of its historical distributional range (Durant et al, 2017). 60 – 70% of previous lion and cheetah habitats in West and Central African protected areas have \u00a0seen recent disappearance of both species (Brugi\u00e8re, Chardonnet, & Scholte, 2015).<\/p>\n

In 2013 analyses established that the African lion has lost at least 75% of its original habitat, with fewer than 35,000 wild African lions remaining (Riggio et al (2013).Bauer et al. ( 2015 ) assessed the trend of 47 relatively well-monitored lions in Africa, and found an alarming population decline of about 38 % over 21 years (1993\u20132014).\u00a0In 2015 the IUCN estimated that fewer than 20,000 lions remain. Worse, it has been suggested that only 6 populations should be considered as biologically viable<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Even the adaptable leopard is now disappearing from areas of its previous range (Giordano et al , 2017).<\/p>\n

Threats to large cats include conflict with humans, reduction of habitat and decline of prey species, all of which are inter-connected. The picture is bleak.<\/p>\n

Further reading:<\/p>\n

Bauer, H., Packer, C., Funston, P.F., Henschel, P. & Nowell, K. 2016. Panthera leo<\/i>. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2016: e.T15951A97162455.http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.2305\/IUCN.UK.2016-1.RLTS.T15951A97162455.en<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Brugi\u00e8re, D., Chardonnet, B., & Scholte, P. (2015). Large-scale extinction of large carnivores (lion Panthera leo, cheetah Acinonyx jubatus and wild dog Lycaon pictus) in protected areas of West and Central Africa. Tropical Conservation Science<\/i>, 8<\/i>(2), 513-527.<\/p>\n

Durant, S. M., Mitchell, N., Groom, R., Pettorelli, N., Ipavec, A., Jacobson, A. P., … & Broekhuis, F. (2017). The global decline of cheetah Acinonyx jubatus and what it means for conservation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences<\/i>, 114<\/i>(3), 528-533.<\/p>\n

Giordano, A. J., Tumenta, P. N., & Iongh, H. H. (2017). Camera\u2010trapping confirms unheralded disappearance of the leopard (Panthera pardus) from Waza National Park, Cameroon. African Journal of Ecology<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Goodrich, J., Lynam, A., Miquelle, D., Wibisono, H., Kawanishi, K., Pattanavibool, A., … & Karanth, U. (2016). Panthera tigris. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2015: e. T15955A50659951.<\/p>\n

Riggio J, Jacobson A, Dollar L, Bauer H, Becker M, et al. (2013) The size of savannah Africa: a lion’s (Panthera leo) view. Biodiversity and Conservation 22: 17\u201335.<\/p>\n

Sandom, C. J., Faurby, S., Svenning, J. C., Burnham, D., Dickman, A., Hinks, A., … & Macdonald, D. (2017). Learning from the past to prepare for the future: Felids face continued threat from declining prey richness. Ecography<\/i>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 1970 there were nearly 40,000 tigers. In the late 1990s this was estimated to be 5,000 – 7,000. Today there are less than 4000. The global cheetah population has declined startlingly to today’s count of just 7,100 individuals, confined to 9% of its historical distributional range (Durant et al, 2017). 60 – 70% of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2246,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17622,1346],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/barbarylion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1075"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/barbarylion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/barbarylion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/barbarylion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2246"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/barbarylion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1075"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/barbarylion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1075\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1081,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/barbarylion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1075\/revisions\/1081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/barbarylion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/barbarylion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/barbarylion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}