According to the IUCN Red List, 5 cat species are ENDANGERED or CRITICALLY ENDANGERED (facing an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild), and another 12 cat species are listed as VULNERABLE (facing a high risk of extinction in the wild). A further 8 cat species are listed as NEAR THREATENED, meaning that they are likely to qualify for a threatened category in the near future. Adding all those up, we have cause for concern about 25 of the 36 cat species. All 36 are listed as having a negative global population trend.

At the top of the list is the IBERIAN LYNX: "The total effective population size of the Iberian lynx is estimated at 250 mature breeding individuals, with a declining trend due to habitat and prey base loss and persecution, and no subpopulation containing more than 50 mature breeding individuals." (RedList.org: Lynx pardinus, Year Assessed 2002)

I've just recently read a book called I'll Trade You an Elk that's been gathering dust on my bookshelf for many years. The book is about a zoo in Kansas during the 1930. The author, a teenager at the time of the story, made an offhanded comment about how cheetahs in India are used extensively as hunting animals, and I though, wow, this guy's information is way out of date because there are no wild cheetahs in India. Then it hit me - his information was accurate at the time - it was the story that was old. He apparently wrote the book years later, during the 1960, and by the time it hit paper, the Indian cheetah was already gone. The last verified shooting of a cheetah in India was in 1947. They disappeared while the author was growing up and getting on with his life, and he didn't even know they were gone.

As I write this now, I wonder if anyone will ever read it and think, wow, that information is way out of date. Those cats have been gone for decades.

April 22, 2005