Guidelines for evaluating the conservation value of African cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) translocations

Abstract As wilderness areas under anthropogenic pressure become increasingly fragmented, natural movement and dispersal of wild animals is becoming progressively limited. Cheetah ( Acinonyx jubatus ) are a free-roaming and wide-ranging species; however, the influence of human development has resulted in isolated and often diminished populations. This has prompted the need for metapopulation intervention through human-mediated translocations which seek to mimic natural dispersal processes and facilitate population recovery. As such intervention carries inherent risk, especially for threatened species, we aimed to create a framework which may guide the translocation of cheetah by allocating a conservation value to proposed movements, towards ensuring that these opportunities are serving both individual duty-of-care and species-level conservation. We then retrospectively applied this framework to five key cheetah translocations in southern Africa. We highlight that translocations into extensive open systems (i.e. unfenced) objectively provide higher conservation value as they have the potential to support long-term self-sustaining cheetah populations, whereas translocations into closed systems (i.e. fenced) provide a relatively lower, but important conservation value due to the need for long-term intensive metapopulation management. High levels of anthropogenic pressure and a lack of post-release management are both associated with lower conservation value translocations. Therefore, we propose that large predator density (i.e., mainly lion and spotted hyaena populations) and human-wildlife conflict in the recipient system are the two biggest factors determining the conservation value of a translocation. Accounting for these threats prior to translocations may reduce the instances of ostensibly ‘failed’ reintroductions. As active management becomes critical for conserving threatened species, frameworks such as these are becoming increasingly valuable for strategic intervention and responsible management.