Iran has only 12 cheetahs on its soil against fifty in 2017, the Iranian Deputy Minister of the Environment warned on Sunday, describing the situation of this endangered feline as "extremely critical".

"There are currently only nine males and three females (cheetahs) against a hundred in 2010 and their situation is extremely critical," the deputy minister in charge of the natural environment told the Tasnim news agency. of Biodiversity, Hassan Akbari.

These animals are victims of drought, hunters or run over by cars, especially in the central desert where they live, he said.

Protection since 2001

The cheetah subspecies "Acinonyx jubatus venaticus", or Asian cheetah, found in Iran, is classified as critically endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

"The measures we have taken to increase the protection and reproduction (of the animal) and the installation of road signs were not enough to save this species," added the deputy minister.

Supported by the United Nations, Iran began a program to protect these mammals in 2001. In 2014, the Iranian football team caused a sensation during the World Cup in Brazil by making the head appear watermarked. of an Asian cheetah on his swimsuits.

The circle of extinct cheetahs

Iran is one of the last countries in the world where these felines live in the wild as the presence of the cheetah, the fastest animal in the world with peaks at 120 km / h, once extended from the eastern reaches from India to the Atlantic coast of Senegal and to the extreme south of the African continent.

If they are still found in numbers in parts of southern Africa, these big cats have practically disappeared from North Africa and Asia.

Did you see ?

VIDEO.

Tanzania: A cheetah comes inside the car of a photographer and his guide

Planet

Too fragile, the cheetah is disappearing

  • Animals

  • Animal protection

  • Planet

  • Iran

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