Urgent action is needed to stop the cheetah - the world's fastest land animal - sprinting to extinction, experts have warned.
Scientists estimate that just 7,100 of the fleet-footed cats remain in the wild, occupying just 9% of the territory they once lived in.
Asiatic populations have been hit the hardest with fewer than 50 individuals surviving in Iran, according to a new investigation led by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS).
In Zimbabwe, cheetah numbers have plummeted by 85% in little more than a decade.
The cheetah's dramatic decline has now prompted calls for the animal's status to be upgraded from "vulnerable" to "endangered" on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of threatened species.
These animals are bound to be extinct one day. It's a natural consequence of industrialization. Africa's underdevelopment is what is keeping most of its wildlife from being extinct or at least slowing down the rate of their extinction.