South African Cheetah

The South African cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus jubatus), also known as the Namibian cheetah, is the most numerous and the nominate cheetah subspecies native to Southern Africa. Since 1986, it has been classified as Vulnerable by the IUCN. The South African cheetah live mainly in the lowland areas and deserts of the Kalahari, the savannahs of Okavango Delta and the grasslands of the Transvaal region in South Africa. In Namibia, cheetahs are mostly found in farmlands. The South African cheetah was first described by the German zoologist Johann Christian Daniel von Schreber under the trinomen Felis jubatus jubatus in the Dutch Cape Colony in 1775.

Previously estimated at a population of 4,190 individuals in Southern Africa since 2007, the total population of the South African cheetah has likely reached to over 6,000 individuals, with Namibia having the largest cheetah population worldwide. Since 1990 and onwards, the population was estimated at approximately 2,500 individuals in Namibia, until 2015, the cheetah population has been increased to more than 3,500 in the country. Botswana contains the second-largest population of cheetahs. In 2007, there were an estimated population of 1,800 individuals. However, in 2016, there are approximately 2,000 South African cheetahs in Botswana, which is about 20% of the world's cheetahs. There were 550 to 850 cheetahs left in South Africa in 2007. After many conservation efforts, the cheetah population has boosted to more than 1,000 individuals. Previously in 2013, there were an estimated population of between 1,200 and 1,300 cheetahs in South Africa. Whilst it is estimated that 1,500 adult cheetahs live in South Africa since 2016, it is also stated by the Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT) that the total population ranges between 1,166 and 1,742 cheetahs in South Africa alone in 2017. In Zimbabwe, on the contrary, the cheetahs' population have severely declined. The population have decreased from more than 1,500 cheetahs since 1999 to 400 cheetahs in 2007, to between 150 and 170 cheetahs as of 2015 in the country. In 2007, approximately 100 individuals remain in Zambia and between 50 and 90 left in Mozambique.

The South African cheetah have gone extinct in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Lesotho. The cheetahs have been reintroduced in Swaziland and recently in Malawi.

Historically, it was believed all cheetahs were genetically homogenous. This changed in January 2011, when the Asiatic cheetahs and the Sudan cheetahs were revealed to be distinct even from their closest relatives from South Africa.