Morteza Eslami told Mehr News that the Association’s investigation during past 3 years indicated that only 40-70 Iranian cheetahs were living in habitats in central deserts of Iran.
“When we speak about the cheetah, in fact we are speaking of a phantom; that is, the animal is rarely seen, so we use special technology and imaging methods to capture the animal’s image,” said Eslami, “Beginning in last year, we installed trap photographing and filming cameras in the wildlife natural reserves of Naibandan, and checked the cameras every month to control for the number of appearances of cheetahs in the footage.”
Eslami said that in Africa as well the cheetah populations had dwindled. “In Asia, it is near extinction, and it lives only in Iran. Since cheetahs live in remote areas, to capture them in cameras happens very rarely,” added he, believing that saving the cheetah is not a national responsibility, but international responsibility. “The world is looking at Iran to save the world’s third large and rare cat,” he asserted.
SH/ZK
MNA
END