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Conservationists have developed a new technique to identify cheetahs in the wild from just their paw prints. The technique works in a similar way to that which allows humans to be identified by fingerprints. By photographing paw prints in the wild researchers can monitor cheetahs without ever seeing them.

It is hoped that this non-invasive technique may aid conservation efforts to protect the cheetah population in the wild. The footprint identification technique (FIT) has already helped researchers study other big cats and endangered species including bengal tigers and polar bears.

Now the method has been developed for the first time with cheetahs in a international collaboration involving conservation organisations N/a'an ku sê sanctuary, Wildtrack, AfriCat and Chester Zoo.

The technique is based on the assumption that every paw print is unique to that cheetah and can be identified similar to a human fingerprint. The local San people in Namibia have been able to identify individual animals from their tracks for many years.

Digital photographs of each cheetah's prints are taken and fed into a computer database. When a new print in sighted and recorded, a bespoke computer program then scans these photographs, recording the distances between specific points on the paw print, until it finds a match.

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