Yousef Yousefi and Hossein Fa’alpour, two on-duty officers of Khartouran National Park managed to capture the images of this beautiful feline creature under extinction when doing their regular patrolling work on Wednesday.
Imaging of this large cat is extremely rare and difficult due to the fact that the animal avoids humans and would not welcome social companies. Asiatic Cheetah, also known as Iranian Cheetah is on the brink of extinction and only 40-70 animals of the species live in restricted wildlife refuges in Iran.
Asiatic Cheetah is indigenous to desert setting of the Iranian plateau, but its odds to survive had been declining, until in 1970s, Iran has been its major habitat, hence the name ‘Iranian Cheetah.’
Khartouran or Touran National Park is located in the extreme east part of Semnan province in Shahroud. Sheer diversity of fauna bestows upon the park the second most protected and largest habitat of the country after Naibandan in Tabas, also a desert city.
With an area of more than 1 million hectares (2.3 million acres), Khartouran is also one of 11 biosphere reserves of the country.
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