“Since initiation of cheetah national monitoring program aiming to understand demographic status of the Asiatic cheetah in Iran, a family has been explored in Miandasht Wildlife Refuge, northeastern Iran composing of three cubs in summer 2012. During their first year of life, the cheetah mother and her small cubs patrolled a small area, limited to a number of water sources across the area’s core zone. After re-establishing monitoring camera traps since early spring 2013 in the area, it was proved that despite high cub mortality of the cheetahs during their first year, the supermom was successful to raise her entire family to the second year. As approaching to the fall when the family is expected to be naturally split, the cheetahs are seen on camera traps in many parts of the area, indicating their significant range expansion.

As the only evidence of cheetah breeding across entire Iran during 2012, the cheetah mom’s success is due to prey restoring in the area by the Iranian Department of Environment which doubled population of Persian gazelle, a favorite prey for the cheetahs in recent years. The cheetah monitoring program in Miandasht Wildlife Refuge is implemented jointly by the ICS and DoE in partnership with
CACP and Panthera.

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“Recent monitoring program by means of camera trapping technology in Naybadan Wildlife Refuge indicated that the cheetah population is stable and no remarkable change in demographic trend is seen. Hosted by Naybadan core zone which is part of the larger 14,000 km2 Naybandan Wildlife Refuge, no more than three individuals have been explored within the population range already recorded for the area between 2002 and 2008 with the same methodology which has been normally between 2 and 4 individuals.

Arash, an adult resident male cheetah is quite dominant in images caught by heat-in-motion camera traps deployed in different parts of the area which looks quite healthy. However, lack of evidence of breeding over past two years has raised a significant concern while efforts are ongoing to find possible signs. Furthermore, more cheetahs are expected to exist in the larger area, as the monitoring program is focused on part of the Wildlife Refuge Initiated since late 2011, Asiatic Cheetah National Monitoring Program has been implementing by the Iranian Cheetah Society (ICS) and Iranian Department of Environment in partnership with Conservation of Asiatic Cheetah Project and Panthera in order to obtain the first comprehensive baseline of the cheetah population in Iran. Extended to eastern country with generous funds from the UK-based PTES, the program now tries to understand feasibility of cheetah re-colonization into Afghanistan from the last established population of the animal in Naybandan Wildlife Refuge in eastern country. Soon after the project field work, a regional meeting is held to report the project’s feedback to local conservation practitioners and also to acknowledge local game guards who were trained and were actively involved in the project implementation.