The Iranian Cheetah Society (ICS) has released a report this week, demonstrating five years of intensive camera-trapping surveys of the Critically Endangered Asiatic cheetah in 11 sites across the subspecies’ range in Iran. As the most comprehensive effort to assess the conservation status of the Asiatic cheetah to date, scientists from ICS surveyed 467 camera-trap stations during over 28,585 trap-nights across 12,955.8 km2 of the core of the Asiatic cheetah habitat in central and north-eastern Iran. Findings from this 5-year survey led to ICS’ announcement about the critical status of the Asiatic cheetah, urging all the partners and decision-makers at both national and international levels to maximize their efforts for safeguarding the last population of the Asiatic cheetah from extinction.
The ICS’ country-wide population assessment of the Asiatic cheetah has been a collaboration between ICS, the Iranian Department of Environment and the Conservation of the Asiatic Cheetah Project (CACP), and has been generously funded by several international and Iranian funders and donors, including the Iran UNDP, La Palmyre Zoo, Association Francaise des Parcs Zoologiques (AFdPZ), Prince Bernhard Nature Fund (PBNF), Stichting SPOTS, the People’s Trust for Endangered Species (PTES), Parcs des Felins & SOS, Rufford Small Grants Foundation, and WWF INNO Program. The ICS’ report is in Farsi (Persian) with English Abstract and can be downloaded here.