Aims to secure habitats for the long-term survival of cheetahs and their ecosystems through multi-disciplined and integrated scientific research, community outreach and education programs.
The South African and East African populations are represented by different subspecies: Acinonyx jubatus jubatus and Acinonyx jubatus raineyi respectively. In the past cheetahs were widely distributed across Kenya. However, over the years, due to human population increase, there has been a loss of habitat, a reduction in prey species and numbers. Conflicts with people, diseases, poaching and poorly managed tourism, have greatly reduced cheetah numbers.
Preserving remaining populations is critically important and a significant task right now. The mission of the Mara-Meru Cheetah Project is to promote the conservation of cheetahs through scientific research, community involvement and education. At that time, she started collecting photographic materials, and now the Project team is able to trace kinship between generations and to build the Mara Cheetah Pedigree.
This work has never been done before and the team is happy to share results with the Mara stakeholders. The ongoing research is a follow-up study, which will compare new results with the previous one in terms of cheetah population status and effect of human activity on cheetah behavior. The Mara Ecosystem has high tourist activity and relatively low grazing, while Meru has the low tourist visitation and very high grazing.
The Maasai-Mara National Reserve km 2 is one of the most popular tourist destinations, while the Meru Conservation Area km 2 is considered to be one of the remaining true wilderness areas in Kenya. Several studies have been conducted on the cheetah population status in the Mara, which can be used for a comparison with the current study.
