Research overview: cheetah conflict and husbandry on East African rangelands

This overview synthesises human-cheetah conflict across East African rangelands, where cheetahs overlap with pastoralist livestock outside protected areas. It reviews patterns of depredation, mostly on young small stock, the frequent overestimation of cheetah impact relative to other predators, and retaliatory or preemptive killing. The literature evaluates mitigation including attentive daytime herding, guarding, and bomas, and the role of research and outreach in correcting misperceptions about cheetah behaviour. The survey frames East African cheetah conflict within the species' wide-ranging, low-density ecology and its vulnerability to even modest additional mortality, arguing that improving husbandry and tolerance on community rangelands is essential for a predator that cannot persist in protected areas alone.