“Cheetahs for Sale”

Photo by Nichole Sobecki / VII for National Geographic. A seven-month-old cheetah in the back of an SUV hisses at a rescuer’s outstretched hand. Authorities intercepted the cub, later named Astur, before he could be sold to a smuggler.

“Cheetahs for Sale,” Nichole Sobecki’s latest work, goes inside the trafficking network that’s draining Africa of its cheetah cubs—and the efforts by Somalilanders to stop the illegal trade. The story is out now in the September issue of National Geographic