Death of Two Iranian Cheetahs in Road Accidents

An Iranian female cheetah was killed in a road accident last week, and five days later, one of her three cubs was also killed in another road accident on December 30. According to a report from the Iranian Environmental Watch website on January 1, on December 26, a female cheetah was hit and killed on the Semnan-Mashhad road. Environmentalists have reported seeing the other two cubs in the protected area of 'Touran'. The report states that the cubs are over a year old. A study conducted in 2012 titled 'Investigation of the Mortality Rate of the Iranian Leopard' at Putra University in Malaysia examined the mortality rate of this leopard across 31 provinces in Iran. According to this research, from 2007 to 2011, 71 deaths of Iranian leopards were recorded in the country. Some were poisoned for their skins, some were killed in road accidents, and others were shot. Unsafe roads and road accidents, along with excessive hunting, are the main causes of leopard deaths in Iran. The head of the hunting and fishing office of the Environmental Protection Organization stated that the penalty for killing each leopard is five million tomans, and it is suggested to increase penalties for hunting to deter the killing of these specific species. Ahmad Ali Kheikha, the deputy for natural and biodiversity environment of the Environmental Protection Organization, announced during a press conference on World Wildlife Day that there is a possibility of a five-year hunting ban and a three-year fishing ban to protect wildlife in the country. Luke Hunter, who has researched the Asian cheetah and Iranian leopard for years, previously told Radio Farda that there are probably fewer than a thousand Iranian leopards in the world, with Iran being home to about 600 to 700 of them. Although previous statistics indicated 110 Asian cheetahs, a new study concluded that the actual number of Asian cheetahs is no more than 70.