The Nordens Ark Zoo in Sweden held a seminar with the aim of assessing the global situation of the Pallas’s Cat and setting up a conservation program. Researchers from Pallas’s distribution regions from 13 countries participated, including the Iranian Cheetah Society(ICS), Iran’s Department of Environment (DoE) and some Iranian NGOs. This meeting sponsored by the Pallas’s cat International Conservation Alliance (PICA) and the Cat Specialist Group (CatSG) of IUCN in November 2018. The compile of available knowledge from various aspects of ecology and the conservation requirements of Pallas’ cat from all over its territory, and the following-up to the publish a magazine, special issue of this small feline by the team of feline’s experts were the achievements of the meeting. Besides, procurements were made to prepare the Universal Action Pallas’ cat Plan at the meeting, which will be released shortly by the organizers.
Pallas’s cat also called Otocolobus manul is one of the six small cats which exist in Iran as well. Like all the other felines in Iran, there is a little knowledge of Pallas’ cat about its ecology and status. Researchers of the ICS reviewed the knowledge of the Persian Pallas’s cat in Iran in the “Cat News” special issue published in 2016 by the CatSG and in collaboration with DoE and a group of researchers.
On a global scale, this small feline is on the range of “near threaten” in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, and its status is ambiguous in many countries. The meeting was a step of a series of efforts to better understanding the current situation and the needs of the Pallas’s cat for better protection throughout the global distribution of this species.