Farmers and Felines

Farmers and Felines. Farmland is stretching into cheetah territory more and more. What happens to the cats?. , Squeezed Out , Downsizing doesn't work for cheetahs; cats in the wild need large areas in which to find food and mates. As their habitat is lost to expanding farmland: , > The range in which they can look for prey gets smaller. , > They compete with other predators for the remaining prey. , > They come into increasing conflicts with other cheetahs., Not Here, Kitty Kitty , Over the last several decades, farmers in Africa have expanded the range of their grazing livestock…right into cheetah habitat. Cats that find themselves within these new farmlands face a growing threat, farmers who think the cheetahs are preying on their livestock. Farmers trying to protect their sheep, goats and cattle kill cats on the prowl., Learning To Live Together , Conservation is working in parts of cheetah territory, even in regions where the cats have suffered drastic population loss. Through education programs, farmers are learning to tolerate cheetahs and discovering that few cheetahs threaten their livestock. And farmers are starting to use dogs to scare off the cheetahs; the farmers don't bother cats that run away.