Plummeting cheetah numbers may be down to humans making them travel further to find their prey, scientists have suggested.

Cheetah numbers have tumbled from 100,000 a century ago to less than 10,000 today, and it was thought that bigger predators such as lions had been monopolising the food available as habitat for the wild animals shrinks.

It had been thought that competition with other predators meant cheetahs were not getting enough access to prey to fuel the enormous amount of energy they use in their super-fast chases, scientists said.

But a new study led by Queen’s University Belfast has found that cheetahs do not actually use significantly more energy than other similar-size animals.

Cheetahs may be Ferraris but most of the time they are driving slowly

And they use up more energy in searching for their prey than in their infrequent sprints to bring down the animals they eat, the research published in the journal Science found.

The researchers suggested human activities which reduced their prey or made it harder to track down was undermining the ability of cheetahs to get enough food to supply the energy they were using.

The study followed 19 wild cheetahs each for two weeks across two sites in southern Africa, one in the Kalahari desert and the other in a wetter area, injecting heavy water into the animals before tracking them and collecting their faeces.

Analysis of the faeces samples showed how much of the heavy water they were losing each day and their energy expenditure, the scientists said.

Michael Scantlebury from Queen’s School of Biological Sciences said: “What we found was that the cats’ energy expenditure was not significantly different from other mammals of similar size − cheetahs may be Ferraris but most of the time they are driving slowly.

“What our study showed was that their major energy costs seem to be incurred by travelling, rather than securing prey.

“If you can imagine walking up and down sand dunes in high temperatures day in, day out, with no water to drink you start to get a feel for how challenging these cats’ daily lives are.”

Yet they remain remarkably adapted and resilient.

“They can even withstand other species, such as lions and hyenas, stealing their prey.

“The reality may be that human activities − for example erecting fences that inhibit free travel or over-hunting cheetah prey − are forcing cheetahs to travel ever-increasing distances and that this may be compromising their energy more than any other single factor.”

Co-author of the paper John Wilson, of North Carolina State University, said: “Too often we blame lions and hyenas for decimating cheetah populations when in fact, it is likely to be us humans that drive their declines.

“Imagine how hard it must be for a small cub to follow its mother further and further through the desert to look for food, while she herself is fighting for survival.”

The researchers said the findings could help inform decisions on conservation strategies for cheetahs and other threatened animals.