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A hidden camera captures a fleeting glimpse of an Asiatic cheetah. Only a few dozen survive in a remote corner of Iran. Worldwide cheetah numbers have plunged from an estimated 100,000 in 1900 to fewer than 10,000 today.
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A nearly grown cheetah cub picks its way through a maze of safari vans in Kenya’s Masai Mara National Reserve. Tourism, lions, and encroaching herds of cattle all add to the challenges of growing up on the African grasslands. Mortality rates for cheetah cubs can run as high as 95 percent.
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Rescued as a cub from the hands of a poacher, five-year-old Koshki grew up in a reserve in northeast Iran. He’s one of only two Asiatic cheetahs living in captivity. A thick tuft of fur on his shoulders, needed for bitter winters on the high steppes of central Iran, sets him apart from African cheetahs.
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A young cheetah mother named Etta by researchers scans the Serengeti for signs of danger while her four 12-week-old cubs wrestle. A long-running study has found that the majority of cubs here are raised by a small group of cheetah supermoms.
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A male cheetah assumes a lookout pose in a fig tree in Kenya’s Masai Mara National Reserve. His prospects are sobering. Shy and aloof by nature, requiring vast spaces to live and hunt, the planet’s fastest sprinters are in a race for their very survival.
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