A juvenile Asiatic leopard, one of the endangered felines, has died, according to the official Iranian News Agency (IRNA), becoming the second animal of its kind to die from three cubs laid by a female Asiatic leopard earlier this month in the wild. nature reserve in Iran.
“We are investigating the causes of the death of the cub (cheetah) and will announce the completion of the investigation after the autopsy,” Iranian Environment Ministry spokesman Hassan Akbari said in statements shared with IRNA. The Asian leopard family is included in the list of endangered species of the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
On May 1, Iran announced the birth of three cubs at the Turan Wildlife Sanctuary in the central province of Semnan, marking the first captive birth of Asiatic leopards. One of these young men died a few days later due to a “congenital malformation of the left lung”.
In January, Akbari said there were only 12 Asiatic leopards in the country, compared to about 50 four years earlier. These animals are suffering from the effects of drought, hunting and vehicle raids, especially in the desert areas in the center of the Islamic Republic, where the last of their herds are located, according to the Ministry of the Environment.
With the support of the UN, in 2001 Tehran launched a program to protect this species, noting that Iran is one of the last countries in the world where these wild animals are still found. The presence of leopards, the fastest animals in the world, at speeds up to 120 kilometers per hour, stretching from the eastern borders of India to the Atlantic coast of Senegal and the extreme south of the African continent.
