First wild born cheetah for 40 years in Arabia (1 Viewer)

[rockfowl]

http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/new...ponse&utm_term=Read the full story »#cr

 

[chris butterworth]

Excellent news - providing some "sportsman" doesn't go over and shoot them!
chris

 

[lashinala]

And kudos to Wildlife Extra for exposing the 'baby cheetah ads' in the Abu Dhabi area also. Good work :t:

 

[jurek]

And kudos to Wildlife Extra for exposing the 'baby cheetah ads' in the Abu Dhabi area also. Good work :t:

I thought you don't need Abu Dhabi, you can buy big cats completely legally in the U.S.? There was a story that there is more pet (hybrid) tigers in American homes than wild tigers in Asia.

 

[lashinala]

Tigers? yes. If you think long term, this is a good thing. Where will the best protected habitat be in the latter end of the 21st century? Here (fortunately or unfortunately). For better or worse, North America is slowly becoming a haven for lots of rewilding efforts, whether intended or not. Its the land of unintended consequences.

 

[rockfowl]

Tigers? yes. If you think long term, this is a good thing. Where will the best protected habitat be in the latter end of the 21st century? Here (fortunately or unfortunately). For better or worse, North America is slowly becoming a haven for lots of rewilding efforts, whether intended or not. Its the land of unintended consequences.

But sadly it's scientifically unregulated so the 'gene' pool is a mess, Bengals crosed with Siberian, backcrossed, not a lot of use for conservation purposes.

 

[lashinala]

Understood, but which is worse: habitat destruction with no tiger survivors, or continental habitat shifting with backcrossing, blending, and hybrids? The niche needed for a lot of woodland North America is an highly mobile apex predator that will reduce meso-predators and eat deer/elk/maybe moose.
Any species of tiger can do this. Accidents are gonna happen (escapees, pets abandoned;etc.).. Its literally just a matter of time (and timing). Look at how many feral dogs and cats we have.

 

[Isurus]

Re Cheetahs - I thought there was a healthy(ish) population in Iran - is this a different subspecies?

Re Tigers in the USA, I can totally see a tiny population of a generic pet tiger form establishing itself in somewhere like texas at some point and it may well be a plus ecologically (better a jaguar protection/re-establsihment project though). I'm not sure pet tigers in the US are anything other than a hindrance for the true wild forms though - they mix genetically to offer very few pure reintroducable individuals and take up funds that may otherwise go to better conservation efforts in roadside "wildlife sanctuaries"