The third phase of the Conservation of Asiatic Cheetah Project, whose draft plan is soon to be reviewed by the Department of Environment and the United Nations Development Program, aims to adopt all alternative methods of breeding the wild cat besides programs to protect it in its habitat.
The CACP is a program jointly undertaken by the DOE and the UNDP with the aim of stabilizing the population of the Asiatic Cheetahs in Iran. It was inaugurated in 2001 and has completed two phases so far. A plan for third phase that will last for five years has been drafted and will be implemented once finalized by the two sides.
According to Majid Kharrazian Moqaddam, director of the wildlife office at the DOE, although protection inside the habitat is still a top priority, captive and controlled breeding will also be regarded as alternatives in the new phase.
"At present conditions, we need to have plans for each individual of the species," he told IRNA.
The official said Iran will not rely solely on the CACP to protect the rare cat and its conservation will still be high on the DOE's agenda.
"Alongside the project, the wildlife office will consider an artificial breeding program for the cheetahs in [Tehran's] Pardisan Park," he said, adding that an agreement for this scheme will soon be signed between the office and the Research Center of Environment and Sustainable Development.
At the moment, a male and two female cheetahs are kept in Pardisan. One of the females is too young to mate and the other has so far failed to give birth to a cub.
Artificial captive breeding is one of the three plans that the DOE pursues for cheetah conservation along with protective measures in its natural habitat.
Another scheme involves creating a fenced natural reserve for which an area of 35,000 hectares in Darreh Anjir in Yazd Province has been proposed according to Iman Memarian, a veterinarian at Pardisan Park.
"The purpose is to create a safe haven for the animal where negative factors such as rival predators are minimized and positive factors such as prey are improved," he said, YJC reported.
Population Statistics
Kharrazian said providing precise population data is a highly costly task because the animal spreads across 12 million hectares of habitat.
"During CACP observations over the past 16 years, 48 cheetahs have been identified, but the figure has definitely changed due to new deaths and births over time."
Nevertheless, rough estimates suggest that the present population of the animal is somewhere around 50.
Asiatic cheetahs that once roamed lands from the Arabian Peninsula to India, only survive in Iran today.
The small remaining population is threatened by many factors including road accidents, the presence of sheepdogs, destruction of habitat and lack of prey.
Over the past 16 years, Kharrazian said, 42 animals have died, 28 of which (70%) were killed in car crashes and the rest were either attacked by sheepdogs or died of other reasons.
"To name two major threats to cheetah's lives, one could say road accidents and sheepdogs," he said.
The Abbas Abad road is most notorious for cheetah kills. Although securing roads is not the DOE's duty, it has allocated 10 billion rials ($100,000) for the installation of fences across five kilometers of high-risk areas and will supply another 10 million rials this year, the official said.
However, construction of an overpass or underpass is required to allow the animal to move across its habitat. Otherwise, the population will be divided and isolated leading to a reduction in genetic diversity.
August 30, the day when a cheetah cub in captivity named Marita died at the age of nine in 2006, was named the Cheetah Conservation Day to inform the public about conservation programs.
