Editing Cheetah (section)

==Distribution and habitat ==
[[File:Acinonyx jubatus subspecies range.png|thumb|The historic and present range of the cheetah]]
[[File:Gepard-Serengeti.jpg|thumb|Cheetahs occur in various habitats, such as the grasslands of the [[Serengeti]]|alt=A cheetah standing on a rock in the grasslands of the Serengeti]]
In eastern and southern Africa, the cheetah occurs mostly in savannas like the Kalahari and Serengeti. In central, northern and western Africa, it inhabits arid mountain ranges and valleys; in the harsh climate of the Sahara, it prefers high mountains, which receive more rainfall than the surrounding desert. The vegetation and water resources in these mountains support antelopes. In Iran, it occurs in hilly terrain of deserts at elevations up to {{cvt|2,000|–|3,000|m}}, where annual precipitation is generally below {{cvt|100|mm}}; the primary vegetation in these areas is thinly distributed shrubs, less than {{cvt|1|m}} tall.<ref name=iucn /><ref name=hunterwcw/><ref name=marker8/>

The cheetah inhabits a variety of [[ecosystem]]s and appears to be less selective in habitat choice than other felids; it prefers areas with greater availability of prey, good visibility and minimal chances of encountering larger predators. It seldom occurs in tropical forests. It has been reported at the elevation of {{cvt|4000|m}}. An open area with some cover, such as diffused bushes, is probably ideal for the cheetah because it needs to stalk and pursue its prey over a distance. This also minimises the risk of encountering larger carnivores. The cheetah tends to occur in low densities typically between 0.3 and 3.0 adults per {{cvt|100|km2}}; these values are 10–30% of those reported for leopards and lions.<ref name=iucn /><ref name=marker8>{{cite book |editor1=Marker, L. |editor2=Boast, L. K. |editor3=Schmidt-Kuentzel, A. |title=Cheetahs: Biology and Conservation |date=2018 |publisher=Academic Press |location=London |isbn=978-0-12-804088-1 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=H3rXDgAAQBAJ&pg=107 |pages=107–120 |chapter=Ecology of free-ranging cheetahs |last1=Marker |first1=L. |last2=Cristescu |first2=B. |last3=Dickman |first3=A. |last4=Nghikembua |first4=M. T. |last5=Boast |first5=L. K. |last6=Morrison |first6=T. |last7=Melzheimer |first7=J. |last8=Fabiano |first8=E. |last9=Mills |first9=G. |last10=Wachter |first10=B. |last11=Macdonald |first11=D. W. |name-list-style=amp |access-date=19 April 2020 |archive-date=21 March 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220321230728/https://books.google.com/books?id=H3rXDgAAQBAJ&pg=107 |url-status=live}}</ref>

===Historical range===
[[File:Maharajah Ramanuj Pratap Singh Deo with cheetah kill 1948 BNHS.jpg|thumb|Three of the last wild cheetahs in India were shot in 1947 by Maharaja Ramanuj Pratap Singh Deo of [[Surguja]]|alt=Maharaja Ramanuj Pratap Singh Deo standing beside the bodies of the last three wild cheetahs in India]]

In prehistoric times, the cheetah was distributed throughout Africa, Asia and Europe.<ref name=wcw/> It gradually fell to extinction in Europe, possibly because of competition with the lion.<ref name=caro1994/> Today the cheetah has been [[extirpated]] in most of its historical range; the numbers of the Asiatic cheetah had begun plummeting since the late 1800s, long before the other subspecies started their decline. As of 2017, cheetahs occur in just nine per cent of their erstwhile range in Africa, mostly in unprotected areas.<ref name=marker4/>

In the past until the mid-20th century, the cheetah ranged across vast stretches in Asia, from the [[Arabian Peninsula]] in the west to the Indian subcontinent in the east, and as far north as the [[Aral Sea|Aral]] and [[Caspian Sea|Caspian]] Seas.<ref name=mallon07>{{cite journal |first=D. P. |last=Mallon |title=Cheetahs in Central Asia: a historical summary |url=http://www.catsg.org/cheetah/05_library/5_3_publications/M/Mallon_2007_History_of_cheetahs_in_Central_Asia.pdf |journal=Cat News |issue=46 |pages=4–7 |year=2007 |access-date=8 February 2018 |archive-date=13 June 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170613132648/http://www.catsg.org/cheetah/05_library/5_3_publications/M/Mallon_2007_History_of_cheetahs_in_Central_Asia.pdf |url-status=live}}</ref> A few centuries ago the cheetah was abundant in India, and its range coincided with the distribution of major prey like the blackbuck.<ref name=wcw/> However, its numbers in India plummeted from the 19th&nbsp;century onward; Divyabhanusinh of the [[Bombay Natural History Society]] notes that the last three individuals in the wild were killed by Maharaja Ramanuj Pratap Singh of [[Surguja]] in 1947.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Ingen |first1=V. |title=Interesting shikar trophies: hunting cheetah ''Acinonyx jubatus'' (Schreber) |journal=[[The Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society]] |date=1950 |volume=47 |issue=3 and 4 |pages=718–720 |url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/187063#page/964/mode/1up |access-date=19 April 2020 |archive-date=8 March 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210308020202/https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/187063#page/964/mode/1up |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.tribuneindia.com/2009/20090726/spectrum/nature.htm |work=[[The Tribune (India)|The Tribune]] |access-date=26 March 2016 |date=2009 |title=Cheetah to be spotted again |last=Buncombe |first=A. |archive-date=28 October 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161028074000/http://www.tribuneindia.com/2009/20090726/spectrum/nature.htm |url-status=live}}</ref> The last confirmed sighting in India was of a cheetah that drowned in a well near Hyderabad in 1957.<ref name="sharma13">{{cite book |last1=Sharma |first1=B. K. |last2=Kulshreshtha |first2=S. |last3=Sharma |first3=S. |editor1-last=Sharma |editor1-first=B. K. |editor2-last=Kulshreshtha |editor2-first=S. |editor3-last=Rahmani |editor3-first=A. R. |title=Faunal Heritage of Rajasthan, India: General Background and Ecology of Vertebrates |date=2013 |publisher=Springer |location=New York |isbn=978-1-4614-0800-0 |pages=3–38 |chapter=Historical, sociocultural and mythological aspects of faunal conservation in Rajasthan |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VU69BAAAQBAJ&pg=PA3 |name-list-style=amp |access-date=19 April 2020 |archive-date=28 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230328014934/https://books.google.com/books?id=VU69BAAAQBAJ&pg=PA3 |url-status=live}}</ref> In Iran there were around 400 cheetahs before [[World War&nbsp;II]], distributed across deserts and steppes to the east and the borderlands with Iraq to the west; the numbers were falling because of a decline in prey. In Iraq, cheetahs were reported from [[Basra]] in the 1920s. Conservation efforts in the 1950s stabilised the population, but prey species declined again in the wake of the [[Iranian Revolution]] (1979) and the [[Iran–Iraq War]] (1980–1988), leading to a significant contraction of the cheetah's historical range in the region.<ref name=marker4/><ref name=marker5>{{cite book |editor1=Marker, L. |editor2=Boast, L. K. |editor3=Schmidt-Kuentzel, A. |title=Cheetahs: Biology and Conservation |date=2018 |publisher=Academic Press |location=London |isbn=9780128040881 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=H3rXDgAAQBAJ&pg=55 |pages=55–69 |chapter=Asiatic cheetahs in Iran: decline, current status and threats |author1=Farhadinia, M. |author2=Hunter, L. T. B. |author3=Jowka, H. |author4=Schaller, G. B. |author5=Ostrowski, S. |name-list-style=amp |access-date=19 April 2020 |archive-date=7 April 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220407160721/https://books.google.com/books?id=H3rXDgAAQBAJ&pg=55 |url-status=live}}</ref>

In 1975, the cheetah population was estimated at 15,000 individuals throughout [[Sub-Saharan Africa]], following the first survey in this region by [[Norman Myers]]. The range covered most of eastern and southern Africa, except for the desert region on the western coast of modern-day Angola and Namibia.<ref name=myers>{{cite report |last1=Myers |first1=N. |author-link=Norman Myers |title=The cheetah (''Acinonyx jubatus'') in Africa. Report of a survey in Africa from the Sahara southwards |year=1975 |publisher=IUCN |place=Morges, Switzerland |url=http://www.catsg.org/fileadmin/filesharing/3.Conservation_Center/3.2._Status_Reports/Cheetah/Myers_1975_Cheetah_in_Africa.pdf |access-date=20 December 2019 |archive-date=20 December 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191220190235/http://www.catsg.org/fileadmin/filesharing/3.Conservation_Center/3.2._Status_Reports/Cheetah/Myers_1975_Cheetah_in_Africa.pdf |url-status=live}}</ref> In the following years, cheetah populations across the region have become smaller and more fragmented as their natural habitat has been modified dramatically.<ref name=south1>{{cite report |author=IUCN/SSC |title=Regional conservation strategy for the cheetah and African wild dog in Southern Africa |url=https://portals.iucn.org/library/efiles/documents/Rep-2007-002.pdf |publisher=IUCN Species Survival Commission |year=2007 |place=Gland, Switzerland |access-date=22 March 2016 |archive-date=19 September 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160919040131/https://portals.iucn.org/library/efiles/documents/Rep-2007-002.pdf |url-status=live}}</ref>

===Present distribution===
The cheetah occurs mostly in eastern and southern Africa; its presence in Asia is limited to the central deserts of Iran, though there have been unconfirmed reports of sightings in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan in the last few decades.<ref name=iucn /><ref name=marker4/> The global population of cheetahs was estimated at nearly 7,100 mature individuals in 2016. The Iranian population appears to have decreased from 60–100 individuals in 2007 to 43 in 2016, distributed in three subpopulations over less than {{cvt|150000|km2}} in Iran's central plateau.<ref name=durant2017>{{cite journal |first1=S. M. |last1=Durant |author2=Mitchell, N. |author3=Groom, R. |author4=Pettorelli, N. |author5=Ipavec, A. |author6=Jacobson, A. P. |author7=Woodroffe, R. |author8=Böhm, M. |author9=Hunter, L. T. B. |author10=Becker, M. S. |author11=Broekhuis, F. |author12=Bashir, S. |author13=Andresen, L. |author14=Aschenborn, O. |author15=Beddiaf, M. |author16=Belbachir, F. |author17=Belbachir-Bazi, A. |author18=Berbash, A. |author19=de Matos Machado, I. B. |author20=Breitenmoser, C. |author21=Chege, M. |author22=Cilliers, D. |author23=Davies-Mostert, H. |author24=Dickman, A. J. |author25=Ezekiel, F. |author26=Farhadinia, M. S. |author27=Funston, P. |author28=Henschel, P. |author29=Horganv, J. |author30=de Iongh, H. H. |author31=Jowkar, H. |author32=Klein, R. |author33=Lindsey, P. A. |author34=Marker, L. |author35=Marnewick, K. |author36=Melzheimer, J. |author37=Merkle, J. |author38=M'soka, J. |author39=Msuha, M. |author40=O'Neill, H. |author41=Parker, M. |author42=Purchase, G. |author43=Sahailou, S. |author44=Saidu, Y. |author45=Samna, A. |author46=Schmidt-Küntzel, A. |author47=Selebatso, E. |author48=Sogbohossou, E. A. |author49=Soultan, A. |author50=Stone, E. |author51=Van der Meer, E. |author52=Van Vuuren, R. |author53=Wykstra, M. |author54=Young-Overton, K. |title=The global decline of cheetah ''Acinonyx jubatus'' and what it means for conservation |year=2016 |doi=10.1073/pnas.1611122114 |pmid=28028225 |pmc=5255576 |journal=PNAS |volume=114 |issue=3 |pages=528–533 |name-list-style=amp |doi-access=free}}</ref><ref name="hunter2007">{{cite journal |last2=Jowkar |first2=H. |last3=Ziaie |first3=H. |last4=Schaller |first4=G. |last5=Balme |first5=G. |last6=Walzer |first6=C. |last7=Ostrowski |first7=S. |last8=Zahler |first8=P. |last9=Robert-Charrue |first9=N. |last10=Kashiri |first10=K. |last11=Christie |first11=S. |last1=Hunter |first1=L. |title=Conserving the Asiatic cheetah in Iran: launching the first radio-telemetry study |name-list-style=amp |journal=Cat News |year=2007 |volume=46 |pages=8–11 |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/263747864 |access-date=19 December 2019 |archive-date=5 May 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240505152123/https://www.researchgate.net/publication/263747864_Conserving_the_Asiatic_Cheetah_in_Iran_Launching_the_first_radio-telemetry_study |url-status=live}}</ref> The largest population of nearly 4,000 individuals is sparsely distributed over Angola, Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa and Zambia. Another population in Kenya and Tanzania comprises about 1,000 individuals. All other cheetahs occur in small, fragmented groups of less than 100 individuals each. Populations are thought to be declining.<ref name=durant2017/>