- Cheetah smuggling, mainly due to a growing demand as status-symbol pets in the Middle East is threatening to push them to extinction. Other reasons:
- Demand of cheetah-skin shoe in Sudan as they supposedly confer high status.
- Demand for skins for clothing and for bones and body parts used in traditional medicine and magic rituals in North and West Africa.
- Cheetah cubs are smuggled from the war-torn Africa through Somalia and Yemen to Middle East, and 1/3rd of these cubs die in transit.
- Already Cheetahs have lost about 90% of their population due to their ranges in Africa being taken over as farmlands.
- A report for the Convention on the Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) says that if action is not taken now on the trade and land-use change then the sub-populations will certainly be lost in a few years.
- A new Cites working group set up in response to the report’s revelations will hopefully curb the illegal trade with better law enforcement. Even the concerned countries spoke up clearly on the issue.
- The Cites summit also acted on the elephant poaching crisis.
- Read at:http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-opinion/cheetah-smuggling-threatens-extinction/article6218791.ece