In 2014, Panthera launched a new range-wide cheetah program based in Zambia’s 66,000 km² Greater Kafue Ecosystem. Our scientists are currently working to identify cheetah population sizes, corridors connecting these populations and the gravest threats facing the species. Panthera is also supporting and expanding existing anti-poaching initiatives, implementing site-specific interventions to mitigate conflict with local people, and researching the impact of the bushmeat trade on cheetahs. These activities will soon expand into the vast Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area, home to the largest population of wild cheetahs in southern Africa.

In addition, Panthera has supported cheetah surveys in Angola, Benin, and Tanzania, and is currently working with partners in Mozambique and Zimbabwe to survey cheetahs and approach governments to implement initiatives that will help conserve cheetahs. In Zimbabwe, this will include reducing pressures from bushmeat poaching and reducing quotas set to legally hunt cheetah. In Mozambique, bushmeat poaching represents a major threat to cheetahs, and intensive surveys are now being followed up with mitigation measures.

As one of only two Western conservation NGOs with permission to operate in Iran, Panthera and our partners have been working since 2008 to protect the last 50 Asiatic cheetahs in the world through the Iranian Cheetah Project. Collaborating with Iran’s government and other partners, Panthera is working to enhance law enforcement to protect cheetahs and their prey, collect critical ecological data, and mitigate conflict and other threats to cheetahs and their prey. In 2015, the first national survey effort of Iranian cheetahs commenced with government cooperation.