Cheetahs in the horn of africa HOA are under immense threat from intense human activities, but especially from the illegal wildlife pet trade cheetah conservation funds CCF work in the HOA has…

Cheetahs in the horn of africa HOA are under immense threat from intense human activities, but especially from the illegal wildlife pet trade cheetah conservation funds CCF work in the HOA has revealed that as many as 300 cubs were removed from east africa each year between 2010 2019 to supply illegal demand immediate intervention is necessary to conserve the population however, proper conservation planning is not possible due to lack of knowledge on population status and drivers of poaching we propose to develop an intensive, multidisciplinary monitoring and analyses strategy for cheetahs to understand the source of cheetah cubs and drivers of the CUB trade in the HOA our project will provide robust scientific data to governments in somaliland, somali regional state SRS of ethiopia, and puntland somalia to enable development of data driven national conservation plans to reduce cheetah trafficking, poaching, and human wildlife conflict in the HOA in objective 1, we will conduct camera trap surveys to estimate population density and occupancy of cheetahs, their prey, and competitor carnivores in the awdal region, somaliland we will determine the density occupancy relationship for cheetahs in awdal and apply IT to other regions in the HOA where less intensive camera trap surveys will be conducted to gather occupancy data we will build the capacity of somaliland, SRS of ethiopia, and puntland governments by training their staff to conduct occupancy surveys for long term monitoring of cheetahs and other wildlife, which they will then implement in their own jurisdictions with local community engagement we will work with DR angela fuller, cornell university and leader of the new york cooperative fish and wildlife research unit, who will mentor a postdoctoral researcher in deriving the occupancy abundance relationship for the first time in cheetahs, and in developing a user friendly graphical user interface GUI tool which will be used by HOA government staff to enter and analyze survey data this GUI will allow governments to not only model the data collected through this project with hands on training by cornell scientists, but also to create new datasets and obtain updated models, thus building their capacity for long term trend monitoring of cheetahs we will also obtain genetic data on cheetahs in the HOA from cheetah scat collected in the same areas as the camera trap surveys to estimate genetic structure at the landscape level this genetic data will help US identify the sources of cheetah cubs that are trafficked in objective 2, we will conduct social science surveys of local communities and pastoralists within camera trap survey areas in somaliland, SRS of ethiopia and puntland to understand human attitudes towards cheetahs and human wildlife conflict levels we will work with DR heidi kretser, center for conservation social sciences at cornell and senior conservation social scientist with the wildlife conservation societys global conservation program, who will guide survey design and analysis this social science study will enhance understanding of the drivers of cheetah trafficking in the HOA and help governments reduce them also in objective 2, we will analyze cheetah scat with a new molecular technique to understand their diet and therefore actual versus perceived human wildlife conflict we will also train masters students from amoud university somaliland , puntland state university puntland and jijiga haramaya universities SRS ethiopia , thus building capacity in summary, the intensive ecological, social, and genetic work will provide a comprehensive understanding of the cheetah population and drivers of trafficking, as well as build capacity with governments, academia, and rural communities in the HOA this project will further solidify cooperation within and among jurisdictions and allow these three governments to more effectively combat trafficking and conserve biodiversity in the HOA