Scientific Article for Students

Abstract

Sometimes humans and animals come into conflict with each other. This can threaten people’s livelihoods and also threaten the animals’ lives.

In central Namibia, farmers have a problem with cheetahs. The cheetahs prey on their baby cows (calves). In turn, the farmers often try to kill the wild cats in order to protect their cattle!

Wouldn’t it be great if we could study the situation and find a solution that suits both the farmers and the cheetahs? This is what we did. We tracked the cheetah’s behavior. We figured out how farmers could manage their cattle so that cheetahs don’t eat the calves. This could prevent farmers from losing their valuable livestock and stop them from trying to kill the cheetahs.

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About this Article

Reading Level
Scientific Topic
Key Words
NGSS Standards
AP Environmental Science Topics
IB Biology Topics
Scientific Methods
Type of Figure
Location of Research
Scientist Affiliation
Included Resources
+ Lesson plan based on the article + Audio version of article + Article translated into German and Bulgarian
Publication Date
July 2021
Scientists studied the behavior of cheetahs in Namibia to work out how to help farmers protect their cattle without harming the cheetahs.
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