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I've spent much of my working life
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trying to film big cats.
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I've watched them in the wild
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and analyzed the footage in the editing room,
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which has given me a real insight into their behavior.
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Today, we can see these amazing predators on our screens
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any time we choose.
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But until quite recently,
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we knew practically nothing about them.
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Big cats are normally shy, and very secretive.
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Today, their populations are shrinking fast.
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But now we have the means to view them
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in more detail than ever,
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and learn the intricacies of their lives.
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Which is just as well because we need to find ways
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of living alongside them
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before they disappear forever.
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These are two young cheetah sisters.
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Their mother left them recently,
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and now, they're on their own.
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They have the form and physique of adults,
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but the sisters have little experience.
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They'll chase anything that moves.
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In this case, an African hare.
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They display all of the cheetah skills,
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speed, agility, and lightning-fast reactions.
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They can grab the earth with their claws,
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and match the hare's tight turning circle.
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They understand that at this speed
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a light touch is all that is needed.
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And the victim's own momentum will do the rest.
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There's only one problem.
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One hare between two of them is barely enough.
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Running at the speed they do is dangerous,
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and a hare is a meager reward.
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They need to work out how to catch something bigger.
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Cheetahs are not your standard big cats.
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They differ from the others in many ways.
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Cheetahs are daytime hunters
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with eyesight optimized for open landscape
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and distant prey.
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They're possibly the fastest land animals
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that have ever lived,
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which makes filming them a bit tricky
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because the end of a run may well be
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a kilometer away from the start.
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It's a real challenge for a cameraman.
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But cheetahs are actually surprisingly easy to read.
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This cat is showing real intent,
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and is definitely looking straight at a possible victim,
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one of these gazelles.
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The tautness of its body
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suggests it's just waiting for a moment
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when the group is distracted.
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If the distance is very great,
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and she can get away with it,
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she'll run to close the gap on the unwary animals,
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before she unleashes full power
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to get maximum surprise.
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At this stage, the cheetah is focused on just one animal.
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One she had selected from the start.
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But suddenly, a slower, closer gazelle
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attracts her attention.
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The cheetah anticipates the gazelle's turn,
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and a simple trip does the rest.
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Like most other cats,
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cheetahs kill with a suffocating bite.
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Because of the way they hunt, cheetahs have adapted
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to live on the widest of wide-open spaces.
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But these vast grasslands have now shrunk to almost nothing.
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As a result, there are only 6,000 cheetahs left
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in the world.
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And yet, here in Kenya's Maasai Mara,
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cheetahs are one of the easiest cats of all to see.
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Male coalitions, such as these five,
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are constantly on the move to find food and females.
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Because of the number of tourists,
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these cats now regard cars as just part of the landscape.
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In fact, they actively use the cars as cover
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on these otherwise featureless steps.
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But the males would be disappointed to know
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that the only females within 15 miles are not ready to mate.
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These two young sisters are only just beginning
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to learn how to fend for themselves.
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They're novices.
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When I was a filming novice myself,
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I was lucky enough to spend a lot of time
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with youngsters just like these.
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For them, the boundary between play
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and serious hunting was blurred.
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They just seem to be having the time of their lives,
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learning about hunting and their prey.
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Millions of years of living with cheetahs
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have given the prey animals
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an incredible amount of speed too,
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as well as agility, and an awareness of their predators.
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It still seems to surprise the sisters
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that animals run from the mere sight of a cheetah,
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and prefer to stay in the open,
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where they can keep an eye on things.
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For the moment, these two will stick together
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and help each other.
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They still have playful urges.
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Not the most suitable behavior
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if you're trying to sneak up on nervous animals.
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Concentration and focus are skills they'll develop in time.
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For the moment, the impala herd is moving far away.
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In a reserve like the Maasai Mara,
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there's a bewildering array of possible prey.
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At this time of year, the plains are full of wildebeest,
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a tempting idea for an inexperienced huntress.
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Wildebeest weigh five or six times
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as much as a 50 kilo cheetah.
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They're armed with dangerous horns, and they're fast too.
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Already, she's made a mistake.
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The young cheetah didn't take into account
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that most of her run would be over rocks.
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And so she can't get her stride into a rhythm,
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and loses the element of surprise.
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The cheetah's most powerful weapon, speed,
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only works properly if the prey is running too.
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This wildebeest bull isn't going to take any cheek
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from an animal almost a fifth of his weight.
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But this isn't just a game of sheer strength.
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It's as much about confidence.
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The wildebeest detects her uncertainty,
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and realizes he is in charge.
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The wildebeest could easily break her bones or gore her,
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but he's not taking any chances.
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These two sisters need to find something
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a bit easier to handle.
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Smaller than the wildebeest is the kongoni.
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It's certainly within their size range.
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But unfortunately, the kongoni is one of the fastest,
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most agile and alert of all the antelope.
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This special gait, known as stotting,
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is used by many antelope as a signal to the cheetahs,
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not only that this animal has seen them,
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but also that it is in peak condition,
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and they shouldn't waste their time chasing it.
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Impala, not much heavier than a cheetah,
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would in principle be a perfect choice.
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When there are plenty around, they drop their guard.
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The sisters walk almost casually up to the antelope,
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stopping at just the right time.
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They've understood hiding in plain sight
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is one of the cheetah's greatest skills.
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The antelope really don't seem to be expecting trouble.
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For the cheetahs,
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this seems to be almost too good to be true.
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There has to be a catch.
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She has the element of surprise.
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But of course, the impala make for the trees.
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While the cheetahs have the top speed to overtake them,
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they won't be able to use it among the branches.
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The cheetahs are foiled by the woodland.
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That's the catch.
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The cheetah's technique works best in open country,
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and the impala know it.
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Hopefully these sisters have learned a lesson here too.
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When impala are near trees, cheetahs don't have a chance.
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The problem these cats face would seem to be simple enough,
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but cheetahs should always
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check their surroundings carefully
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before they start a hunt.
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This sister is attracted to a herd of topi.
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But she's too low to notice that in the background,
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a few hyenas are wandering in this direction.
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The cheetah is completely focused
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on the two youngsters sparring.
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The other sister has seen the hyena.
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The first sister starts a run.
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The hyenas are watching the action with great interest.
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Only now does the cheetah finally see the hyenas,
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and realizes that perhaps it was a lucky miss.
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Had she made a kill, she wouldn't have kept it for long.
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She needs to retreat.
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One of the few things you can be sure of about predators
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is that they really don't like each other.
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Lions are particularly dangerous for cheetahs.
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Not only do they steal kills,
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but they'll kill cheetahs as and when they find them.
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They're the cause of most cheetah mortality.
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Their arrival is too much for the second cheetah.
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Prudence is also a key skill for this delicate cat.
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The lioness has cubs to look after,
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so won't bother with the cheetah today.
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As the sun rises in the sky, the ground begins to heat up.
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These specialist cats are more thinly spread
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than lions or hyenas,
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but the cheetah has found her niche
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that the other big predators can't exploit effectively.
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Short grass plains in the middle of the day.
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Lions need the cover of darkness
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to hunt effectively without cover.
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Hyenas have difficulty keeping cool during a long chase,
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which is why both these species mostly sleep during the day,
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leaving the plains free for the cheetahs.
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With no shade, it's 40 degrees.
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The cheetahs keep cool
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by breathing rapidly through their mouths, like all cats,
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but their slender build, and even their spots will help.
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Cheetahs seem to be more comfortable in these temperatures
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than their competition.
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They also have super sharp daylight vision,
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enabling them to see far-off, tiny details,
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like a small group of gazelles grazing a kilometer away.
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From this distance,
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the gazelle's stamina would easily beat a cheetah,
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so the cat will need every ounce of patience
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to get near enough for a strike.
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Over millennia, cheetahs have perfected the art
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of short grass stalking.
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They even use heat haze as camouflage.
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From the gazelle's low position,
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only the upper part of the cheetah is visible.
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And the cat stops moving altogether
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when the prey is looking up.
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I've watched a cheetah spend an hour
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getting within range by this method.
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Cheetahs derive their enormous strength
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from the very same fast twitch muscle possessed by all cats.
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In a few seconds, it accelerates
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to almost 100 kilometers an hour.
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The cat has covered 50 meters
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before the gazelle hears its paws thumping on the ground.
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By the time the gazelle has reached its own full speed,
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the gap is down to five meters.
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Now the cheetah is practically flying,
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getting lift from every eight meter bound.
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In slow motion, it looks effortless,
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but the cheetah is now using much of its strength
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just to push through the air.
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Its body is moving at 100 kilometers an hour,
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but its legs have to move twice as fast
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to overtake its body.
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At 200 kilometers an hour,
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the air pressure on the cheetah's legs is immense.
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While the gazelle's tiny legs are much more streamlined.
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The wind flattens the cheetah's ears onto its head.
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But there is a time limit on the run.
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The cheetah is burning energy at a prodigious rate,
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and only has seconds left before its reserves are exhausted.
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Fast twitch muscle delivers extra power,
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but only for a short time.
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This is the kind of knife edge that drives evolution.
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That has driven gazelles to become ever faster,
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and cheetahs to try and keep up.
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Today, the gazelle wins.
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He has improved his chances of passing on his genes,
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while the cheetah will have to plan
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more carefully next time.
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But the cheetah's biggest problem isn't being fit enough,
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it's having sufficient habitat to sustain it.
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The grasslands on which the cheetah's main prey depend
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don't just make themselves.
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All the grazers play their part.
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The wildebeest, the zebras, the elephants.
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This increasingly rare habitat is what cheetahs call home.
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But all over Africa,
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these delicate communities have been lost to scrap,
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as prey species have been hunted out.
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As elephant numbers have plummeted,
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vast tracts have been plowed for wheat and corn.
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Of all the cats, the cheetah is the only one
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that is a true nomad,
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which means it needs a far greater land area
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than the others.
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In the ice ages, these amazing hunters
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could walk unhindered across continents, and they did.
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In fact the cheetah's true home
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is most likely the steps of Asia.
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It walked from the Russian far east
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to the southern tip of Africa.
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But today, they've lost almost all of their range.
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100 years ago, there were as many cheetahs here
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on the Asian steps as there are in Africa today.
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The Asiatic cheetah is almost identical
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to the modern African version,
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except that it is now perilously close to extinction.
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They were once common here in the Iranian desert.
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Now no more than 50 Asiatic cheetahs are thought to remain,
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spread across an area as large as the British Isles.
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Finding a cheetah here
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is like finding a needle in a haystack.
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But that's what this male is trying to do.
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He leaves a marker he hopes a female will find and follow.
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It's a system that allows all cats
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to exist in incredibly low densities.
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But here the distances really are vast,
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and the prey animals are much more rare
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than they used to be.
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There's plenty of space for cheetahs,
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but hunting has depleted gazelles and other wildlife
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to almost nothing.
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Worryingly, these extremely rare camera trap images reveal
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that most of the surviving population are males,
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desperately searching for one of the four or five
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surviving, breeding females.
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The situation is now so dire
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that this image may well be the last image
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of an Asiatic cheetah cub, ever recorded.
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Let's hope this isn't going to be the fate
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of African cheetahs, a century from now.
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