In order to celebrate the International Year of Biodiversity, wildlife theaters are held by the Iranian Cheetah Society (ICS) in Darabad Museum of Nature and Wildlife, Tehran.
Commonly considered to be an entirely African species, the cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) once had a distribution that extended across the Middle East, Central Asia,...
more » In order to celebrate the International Year of Biodiversity, wildlife theaters are held by the Iranian Cheetah Society (ICS) in Darabad Museum of Nature and Wildlife, Tehran.
Commonly considered to be an entirely African species, the cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) once had a distribution that extended across the Middle East, Central Asia, north into southern Kazakhstan and southeast into India. Today outside of Africa, the cheetah has been extirpated from its entire Asiatic range except for a small and critically endangered population in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Estimated at 200 animals in the 1970’s, the last Asiatic cheetahs are now thought to number 60-100 animals, all occupying the Dasht-e-Kavir region of north-central Iran.
Iran’s cheetahs are now on the verge of extinction. Iran considers the cheetah an important part of its natural and cultural heritage and it has become a symbol of the country’s conservation efforts. With the future of the cheetah so precarious, Iran’s Department of the Environment (DOE) has launched a major initiative, in conjunction with the UNDP-GEF program, Panthera and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), entitled “Conservation of the Asiatic Cheetah, Its Natural Habitat, and Associated Biota in the I.R. of Iran” (abbreviated as CACP).
2 cheetahs were photographed in Turan National Park, north central Iran on 9 July 2010 by ICS research biologists, Mohammad Beheshti, Arash Sadeghi and Hossein Hajhashemi. They were able to spot several herds of onagers and Jebeer gazelles plus several sightings of Houbara bustards. Finally, they were lucky to see a group of 2 cheetahs at 11 AM inside the core zone which one of them standing at the ridge was photographed. Last fall, another group of the ICS volunteers was also lucky to see a group of 3 cheetahs in southern Turan.
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