This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
How do you think Cheetahs Up Close paints a more precise picture of these beautiful animals?
Because they’re famed as being the fastest land animal on earth and this amazing predator, we assume that must mean that they’re at the top. But the reality is they are not top predators. Lions and hyenas are just on another level, and it shows just how hard [cheetahs] have to work to survive.
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One of the first questions you ask in the show is, “Why is it so hard for the fastest land animal to survive?” What are some of the struggles cheetahs face in their habitats?
Inside protected areas, alongside cheetahs, you also have things like lions and hyenas. Now, lions, as an example: very good at living inside protected areas, very bad at living outside. And what that means is you get really high concentrations of lions inside many protected areas, [making it] very challenging for cheetahs to live. So most cheetahs in the wild live outside of protected areas. But when they go outside of protected areas, they come under all sorts of challenges, whether that be conflict with livestock or their habitat getting broken up.
Because they’re built for speed, not for fighting, their strategy when they get into trouble is to run away. And that means they need huge amounts of space—far more space than, say, a pride of lions. And because all our protected areas are these isolated pockets, those corridors between the connected areas are so important. And in many places, the connectivity isn’t there.
