The Endangered Wildlife Trust and the South African National Parks organize photographic censuses of Wild dogs and Cheetahs in the Kruger National Park. It is a nice example of how participation of the general public helps to gather scientific data on population sizes and home ranges of endangered species, and thus assists in their conservation.
While this year large cats stayed a bit further away from my lens as compared to my previous trip, lion, leopard and cheetah all were kind enough to allow us to spot them. Two cheetahs even showed their left and right flanks, allowing me to capture images of their distinctive spotted coat patterns. As photographic evidence of cheetah is generally poor throughout the park, I was particularly happy to be able to assist EWT and SANParks in the conservation of this wonderful animal.
Spot pattern record of cheetahs in Kruger National Park
Ha! Work out the fluctuating asymmetry from that!
Well, for tigers, software has been developed to do just that (more or less) (ScienceBlogs).