This year’s winner in the Overall Research category of BBC Wildlife Magazine’s 2014 Camera-trap Photo of the Year Awards 2014, sponsored by Lowepro, was a rare shot of an Asiatic cheetah. It was taken by a trap owned by the Iranian Cheetah Society (ICS) in the Naybandan Wildlife Refuge in South Khorasan Province.
Striking images of the critically endangered black rhino and Asiatic Cheetah became the overall winner of the research categories and rare species winner. The society was awarded £3,000 ($4,700) prize money, reports BBC.
The Asiatic Cheetah is now listed as critically endangered in the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Animals. Iran’s Department of Environment, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), and the Global Environment Facility (GEF) have launched the Conservation of the Asiatic Cheetah Project (CACP) designed to preserve and rehabilitate the remaining areas of cheetah habitat left in Iran.
