Iranian Cheetah

I've just been reading about the Iranian Cheetah Society. There are about 70-100 Iranian Cheetahs. It seems like an impossibly small population. Before 1940 they say that the population was at around 400. The Cheetahs major range is in Africa specifically Namibia (see Cheetah habitat).

What comes strongly through when reading about the Iranian Cheetah is that the key to the conservation of the species is education and this point is made clear on Iranian Cheetah Society's website.

They recently reported the case of a family of cheetah, mother and 3 cubs who had arrived at a water hole in Bafq Protected Area. Some local people attacked the family. The mother ran off and two cheetah cubs were killed (can you imagine, such a rare animal and two precious, adorable cubs killed for no reason). Fortunately one cub was saved and is now at a sanctuary. Of course the people are fearful of big wild cats both for themselves and their livestock but the education program instigated and run by the Iranian Cheetah Society is designed to enlighten people to enable them to enable them to share the habitat with the cheetah, to try and live in harmony with the cheetah and surely this is the objective for all of us.

This means be able to identify the cheetah and taking out insurance policies to compensate them when a cheetah kills livestock for example. Unfortunately, due to human population growth and as is the case in Namibia, the cheetah is forced to live on a farm and that will bring certain conflict.

Some people in the USA could learn from this. Sometimes the Western countries are a little arrogant and think they know best and are doing best. This is not necessarily the case. In the US people still hunt and kill the precious Cougar or Mountain Lion. Sport hunting of any creature never mind the Cougar is outmoded, outdated and should be considered barbaric today.

One other thing, the Iranian Cheetah Society are in fact concerned with the conservation of the 5 major species, all carnivores, the cheetah being one. The others are the Persian Leopard, grey wolf, striped hyena and the brown bear.

The cheetah habitat is in 6 regions in Iran:

Khar Turan National Park
Miandasht Wildlife Refuge
Kavir National Park
Daranjir Wildlife Refuge
Bafq Protected Area
Naybandan Wildlife Refuge

Iranian Cheetah to Florida Cougar