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Coyote story

Spencer asks: I am studying the cheetah and I have learnt that the cheetah lives in the bush and it can run as fast as a car going high speeds. How does the cheetah kill it's prey?

Sean Bell replies: Like sabre-tooth cats, that developed very specialized prey-catching techniques, the Cheetahs are another group of cats that developed a very specific hunting strategy. A cheetah gets as close to its prey as possible, then bursts into high gear--but only for about 15 to 30 seconds, if that. If the prey animal can stay away long enough, which it usually does, it will get away. If the cheetah can get close enough, it will disable the prey (usually an antelope of some kind) by sweeping out the prey's hind leg with it's own front paw (at these really high speeds of 50 miles per hour, it doesn't take much to cause an animal to trip--think of how much easier it is for a person to be tripped while running as opposed to walking slowly--but don't actually try this, take my word for it!). When the animal crashes, the cheetah gets it's jaws around the throat and suffocates the prey. Then, a lot of the time, lions or hyenas steal it. being fast means being light, which on the savannahs, usually means not being the strongest. This is a big evolutionary trade-off that has shown up a few times in carnivorous mammals (extinct hyaenas in Africa, Eurasia, and North America; extinct pumas in North America; several other species of extinct cheetahs) and, like sabre teeth, can be very useful, but can really affect the ability to adapt or compete if the environmental situation changes.

Kelly replies: Hi Spencer, I found this interesting article on cheetahs, you may want to take a look at it... read article

Spencer says: I drew the this lion because it is an endangered species and it might become extinct because many people are killing them. People are shooting them to use their skins for carpets and to eat their meat.
People kill the lion to make costumes. Also, people like to mount the head of the lion on the wall like a trophy. Or they stuff the whole body and dispplay it in their homes.

Ms R-m replies: Hi Spencer, What do you like to collect? What if it were beanie babies and your collection of beanie babies was really, really special to you. What if you played with your beanie babies, looked at them, and bought and sold them to make money to help your family? Now, what if you really liked lions and their coats or heads? How would that be different or the same as collecting beanie babies? Once I was in a National Park and I found a rock that I really, really liked. I really, really wanted that rock. It would have looked super in my bedroom. I knew that no one in the world would have known that I took that rock. They might never notice that it was gone. But there were rules in the National Park that said no one could take any thing home with them...not even one rock. I felt sad for a long time not to have that rock. Should I have taken it? Ms. R-M

Spencer replies: Beanie Babie are different frm lions because lions are real live animals. If we run out of Beanie Babies, we could just make more but with lions we can't make anymore lions because there would be no more lions to make new lions, people can't make lions.