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0 By Harley Galarneau
A blur of sunshine, orange, and black smears. Black under-eye marks and cleat paws, just like our athletes. Faster than those broken tail-light white trucks that fly down Whoop Up. That’s right, the fastest land animal, the cheetah, has been spotted in our very own Lethbridge.
You may be asking yourself, how did a cheetah get here? Don’t they only live in Africa? Well, dear readers, not only was the soil beneath our feet once roamed by hundreds of thousands of cheetahs, but it is their very real presence within North America that grants us the adored mascot species that Luxie belongs to, the Pronghorn.
However, the agile feline we know from nature documentaries is not the only variant of its kind; in fact, there are five cheetah subspecies today. Though, which kind is spotted here in Lethbridge? To answer that, let’s dive into their phenotypical differences and geographical ranges.
East African Cheetah
The East African Cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus raineyi), also known as the Tanzanian or Kenyan cheetah, as the second most populated of the species, their habitat ranges across grasslands and savannahs of Tanzania, Uganda, Somalia, and Kenya. While the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, and Burundi were once within that range, they are now considered extinct in those regions. They are distinguished by their white, yellowish-to-tannish fur and their larger proportions (110 cm-135 cm from head to body), making them the largest of the subspecies.
Northeast African Cheetah
The Northeast African Cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus soemmeringii), often referred to as the Sudan cheetah, Somali cheetah, or Central Africa cheetah, is peculiar in its appearance, in which it bears far smaller back dorsal spots, and absolutely no spots on its hind legs. It is unfortunately nearly extinct in Sudan, and what little remains of this population lives in Central and Northeast Africa.
South African Cheetah
The South African Cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus jubatus), or the Namibian cheetah, is considered the most populous of all the subspecies, with its habitats of the Okavango Delta, Transvaal, Kalahari, and Namibia being considered the “Cheetah Capitals of the World.” With golden-yellow coats and white undersides, their spots are much denser and more pronounced on their faces than in the other subspecies. Much like their counterparts, they are also extinct in areas that were once populated, including Malawi, Lesotho, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Northwest African Cheetah
The Northwest African Cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus hecki), also called the Senegal or Saharan cheetah, is identifiable by its smaller body, nearly white in colour fur, lack of spots on its face, and even the absence of the memorable cheetah marker of black tear lines. Their coat is also much shorter, and the spots on their back fade from black to brown as they reach their legs. They only occupy 9% of their original habitat, and are extinct in Ghana, Morocco, and Senegal. Currently living in small parts of Niger and Algeria, as of September 2025, fewer than 250 mature individuals live wild in these regions.
Asiatic Cheetah
The Asiatic Cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus venaticus), also known as the Iranian cheetah, is considered the rarest of all its species. Only found in Iran, their current population holds only 20 in the wild and 6 in captivity. Once widespread across the Arabian Peninsula and as far as India, they are now critically endangered. In appearance, their fur is a light fawn colour, and unlike that of any other species, the small black spots on their heads are arranged in lines.
Combined, these subspecies comprise a total population of fewer than 7,100 individuals in the wild, making the cheetah severely endangered of extinction. If there are so few of them in the world, how on Earth did one manage to survive getting all the way to Lethbridge?
The American Cheetah’s Legacy
Contrary to popular belief, the cheetah did not always only occupy regions of Africa. In fact, even 100 years ago, more than 100,000 cheetahs roamed not only Africa, but also the Middle East and large parts of Asia. Moreover, 12,000 to 10,000 years ago, cheetahs walked the very soil we stand on, populating all across North America and Europe. Though not like the cheetahs we know today, this ancestor, the American Cheetah (miracinoyx), migrated from North America to Africa during the late Pleistocene Era, at the end of the last ice age. During the mass extinction of other large fauna, both the American and European Cheetah populations were wiped out, leaving those previously from those regions that had migrated to Africa and Asia as the surviving ancestor that evolved into the beloved modern cheetah we know today.
While not exclusive, the American Cheetah, along with wolves (Canis) and the American lion (Panthera), is the reason our Lethbridge pronghorns (Antilocapra) are so fast. As one of the American Cheetahs’ main prey, the pronghorns that could outlast the cheetahs 113km/hr speed in endurance, while they can reach that speed in just three seconds, they can only maintain it for about two minutes, and require a resting period of six to eight hours immediately afterwards before attempting to hunt again, evolved thousands and thousands of years later into the modern pronghorn that our dear Luxie now inhabits.
So no, there have been no actual cheetahs spotted in Lethbridge since the late Pleistocene Era. Apologies for the clickbait title, but that does not diminish the significant impact their existence has on the world’s ecosystems. As an apex predator, their presence is vital to balancing the food chain equilibrium. While the cause of the American Cheetah’s mass extinction may have been the vast change in climate, the African Cheetahs’ approach to extinction is our fault.
Cheetah Conservation
Humans have had a direct and malicious hand in the severe population decline of cheetahs in the last century. In the time that Canada has officially been a country, the cheetah has gone from a population of over 100,000 across Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, to less than 7,100 only in small parts of Africa. Due to extreme habitat loss from foreign resource extraction, constant poaching for their fur, and the horrifyingly popular kidnapping of cheetah cubs to sell in global Illegal Pet Trades (only 1 out of five cubs survives due to intense malnourishment and abuse), cheetahs are critically endangered. Furthermore, such rapid declines in their population have created few opportunities to build genetic diversity, as the limited gene pool leads to high rates of inbreeding within the species. Without genetic diversity, they are even more vulnerable to adapting and surviving the harsh conditions we humans subject them to.
We would not have Luxie without the cheetah. We would not have pronghorns without the cheetah. I hope this article serves as a call to action for readers to understand the significance of endangered species in regions far from us and to have the opportunity to take part in animal conservation while we still can. The top international cheetah conservation organization, Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF), has branches in Namibia, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada. Through caring and rehabilitating stolen cheetah cubs from the Illegal Pet Trade, educating farmers and residents about cheetah behaviour (cheetahs are not nocturnal, and only hunt in the day). Farmers often wake up to dead sheep and assume the cheetah they spot was the cause, killing it, when in reality it was another predator in the night. Fighting to protect their habitats from invasive resource extraction, CCF plays a pivotal role in preserving and protecting cheetahs.
References
- Cheetah Conservation Fund. (2026). Cheetah Conservation Fund. https://cheetah.org/
- Higgins, P., Meachen, J., & Lovelace, D. (2022). Were pronghorns (Antilocapra) primary prey for North American cheetahs (Miracinonyx)? Quaternary International, 647–648, 81–87. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2022.08.003
- Nag, O. S. (2017, August 1). How many types of cheetahs are there? WorldAtlas. https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/how-many-types-of-cheetahs-are-there.html
- Sisneros, R. R. (2025, September 11). Northwest African Cheetah habitat and Conservation status. Nahf. https://www.nahf.org/article/northwest-african-cheetah
