IUCN / SSC Cat Specialist Group - Digital Cat Library |
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| Sillero, C.; Burruss, D. | |
| Sahara Carnivores Project | |
| 2011 Full Book | |
The Sahara harbours a rich carnivore guild, including canids (golden jackal, Rppell's fox, pale fox and fennec), small cats (sand cat, African wild cat, and caracal) and larger predators such as striped hyaena and cheetah. The Saharan race of cheetah (_Acinonyx jubatus hecki_) is very rare, and one of the most specialized and threatened carnivores in Africa. There is very little published research on these desert carnivores in the wild. Pale fox ecology and behaviour in particular seems virtually undocumented, aside from anecdotal or very dated accounts. Similarly, there is very little information on Saharan cheetah, with the exception of a current project in Algeria. The Sahara Carnivores Project started in August 2009 to study this carnivore guild in the deserts of eastern Niger. The project is a collaboration between the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU) at University of Oxford, Sahara Conservation Fund, the St Louis Zoo and Marwell Wildlife, under the aegis of the IUCN/SSC Cat, Canid and Hyaena Specialist Groups. Our aim is improve our understanding of sympatric Saharan carnivores, and evaluate impact of human activities on carnivore populations, and that of carnivore predation on livestock. We work in Termit and Tin Toumma region of the southern Sahara in close collaboration with Sahara Conservation Fund (SCF), the Projet Antilopes Sah‚lo-Sahariennes (ASS) and the Niger Ministry of the Environment. |
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