BiodiversConserv(2017)26:1027–1046 DOI10.1007/s10531-017-1298-8 REVIEW PAPER The critically endangered Asiatic cheetah Acinonyx jubatus venaticus in Iran: a review of recent distribution, and conservation status Mohammad S. Farhadinia1,2 • Luke T. B. Hunter3 • Alireza Jourabchian4 • Fatemeh Hosseini-Zavarei1 • Hasan Akbari5 • Hooshang Ziaie6 • George B. Schaller3,7 • Houman Jowkar8,9 Received:9September2016/Revised:5January2017/Accepted:20January2017/ Publishedonline:3February2017 (cid:2)TheAuthor(s)2017.ThisarticleispublishedwithopenaccessatSpringerlink.com Abstract Considerable effort has been put into conservation of the critically endangered Asiatic cheetah Acinonyx jubatus venaticus in Iran during the past few decades, and a thorough review of the species’ status, demography, range and conservation is provided here.Wecollatedalargedatasetofallverifiedoccurrencedata,photographicrecordsand mortalitycasessince1980throughoutthespecies’rangeinIran.Currently,thecheetahis CommunicatedbyKarenE.Hodges. Electronicsupplementarymaterial Theonlineversionofthisarticle(doi:10.1007/s10531-017-1298-8) containssupplementarymaterial,whichisavailabletoauthorizedusers. & MohammadS.Farhadinia [email protected] LukeT.B.Hunter [email protected] AlirezaJourabchian [email protected] FatemehHosseini-Zavarei [email protected] HasanAkbari [email protected] HooshangZiaie [email protected] GeorgeB.Schaller [email protected] HoumanJowkar [email protected] 1 ProjectFuture4Leopards,Tehran,Iran 2 WildlifeConservationResearchUnit,DepartmentofZoology,UniversityofOxford,Recanti- KaplanCentre,TubneyHouse,Oxford,OxfordshireOX135QL,UK 123 1028 BiodiversConserv(2017)26:1027–1046 distributed throughout the arid landscapes of the eastern half of Iran, but the limits of its current and past range as well as population trends are uncertain. Surveys of nearly 40 differentareasresultedin18localitieswithconfirmedpresenceofcheetahsinrecentyears. Camera trapping has been an effective tool to provide evidence of presence and status of cheetahs,revealingthespecies’extremelylowdensityandlonginter-reservemovements. Togetherwithphotographicrecords,atotalof82differentcheetahs weredetectedduring the2000sinIran.ProtectionstatusinmostareashasbeenelevatedbytheIrangovernment. Asiaticcheetahsarehighlyvulnerabletoextinction,mainlyduetocausalitiesmediatedby herder persecution, poaching and road collisions as well as prey and habitat loss. Some efforts have been made to address these threats, but range expansion in recent years is a result of greater survey effort, rather than population recovery. We suggest that, despite conservationinvestmentofthelast15 years,thespeciesremainscriticallyendangeredon the verge of extinction. Keywords Arid landscapes (cid:2) Asiatic cheetah (cid:2) Camera trap (cid:2) Extent of occurrence (cid:2) Iran Introduction The cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) once had a distribution that extended across the Middle East, Central Asia into southern Kazakhstan and across India almost to the border with Bangladesh(Caro1994).TodayoutsideofAfrica,thecheetahhasbeenextirpatedfromits entire Asiatic range except for a small population in the Islamic Republic of Iran (Farhadinia 2004). Occasional reports of cheetahs arise from neighboring countries but with the exception of skins likely in trade, there has been no physical evidence of the species outside Iran since 1982 (Pakistan: Roberts 1997; Husain 2001; Afghanistan: Manati and Nogge 2008; Turkmenistan: Jackson 1998). Historically, the cheetah in Asia has been classified with North African cheetahs as a discrete subspecies, A. j. venaticus (Pocock 1939; Ellerman and Morrison-Scott 1966). Morphological differences between African and Asiatic cheetahs are slight, with various authors(Dareshuri1978;Karami1992)attemptingtodelineatedifferencesinmorphology and pelage with equivocal results. However, recent analysis of a large sample of archaeozoologicalandcontemporarysamplesdemonstratedthatAsiaticcheetahs(i.e.,A.j. venaticus) are unambiguously separated from African subspecies, with a putative split between Asiatic and African populations at 32,000–67,000 years ago (Charruau et al. 2011). 3 Panthera,8West40thStreet,18thFloor,NewYork,USA 4 Tehran,Iran 5 IranDepartmentofEnvironment(DoE),YazdProvincialOffice,Yazd,Iran 6 IslamicAzadUniversity,NorthTehranBranch,Tehran,Iran 7 WildlifeConservationSociety,2300SouthernBlvd,Bronx,NY10460,USA 8 ConservationofAsiaticCheetahProject,IranDepartmentofEnvironment,Tehran,Iran 9 PersianWildlifeHeritageFoundation,Tehran15856-86341,Iran 123 BiodiversConserv(2017)26:1027–1046 1029 The cheetah is globally considered as Vulnerable (but see Durant et al. (2016) for a rationaletoup-listthespeciesto‘Endangered’),whereastheAsiaticcheetahiscategorized as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List (Durant et al. 2015). In Iran, the sub- species has become the most prominent symbol of the country’s imperiled wildlife and conservationefforts(Hunteretal.2007;JourabchianandFarhadinia2008).Withthefuture of the cheetah so precarious, Iran’s Department of the Environment (DoE) launched a major initiative entitled ‘‘Conservation of the Asiatic Cheetah, Its Natural Habitat, and AssociatedBiotaintheI.R.ofIran’’(CACP)in2001tomitigatethreatstocheetahs,their prey and their habitats (Hunter et al. 2007; Breitenmoser et al. 2009). Additionally, the CACP and associated NGOs started conducting ongoing surveys to determinethedistributionandabundanceofcheetahs,otherlargecarnivoresandungulates. Thispapersummarizestheresultsofthosesurveyeffortsandprovidesallknownrecordsof the Asiatic cheetah since 2001. We place the present status of the Asiatic cheetah in contextwithacomparisontoallknownrecordsfrom1980totheinceptionoftheCACP. Finally, we summarize the present threats and conservation status of the cheetah in Iran, and provide recommendations for urgent conservation activities. Methods We compiled all known records of Asiatic cheetahs in Iran between 1980 and 2012. We established a database hosting data from various sources which were grouped into two mainperiods;before2001(inwhichnoconcertedconservationeffortwasmade),andafter 2001whenacomprehensiveconservationprogramtosavethecheetahwasimplementedin Iran.Wecreatedthehistoricrange(uptoc.1980)ofthecheetahinIranbasedonavailable resources (Dareshuri and Harrington 1976; Asadi 1997; Ziaie 2008; Jourabchian and Farhadinia 2008). Pre-2001 records We collected pre-2001 records of cheetah presence from grey literature, including DoE newsletters,missionreports,naturemagazines,universitydissertationsandbooks(intotal ca. 470 sources). We only used documents produced by trained biologists, such as DoE experts,chiefgameguardsoruniversitystudentsandexcludedallsourceswhichwewere unabletoprovetheirreliability,basedonauthors’experience.Additionally,wevisited42 museums and public collections in Iran to examine preserved specimens. Finally, we contacted foreign museums (n = 10) perceived to store samples from Iranian cheetahs. Direct sighting We interviewed ca. 335 protected area personnel, hunters, researchers, taxidermists, and collectorswithinthespecies’historicrangeinIran.Sincethemajorityofcheetahhabitatin Iran hosts very few people for most of the year, our interview efforts focused chiefly on protectedareapersonnel.Wealsointerviewedlocalpeoplewheretherewasunambiguous physical evidence they had seen a cheetah, such as photographs, clear tracks, or killed livestock.Trackswereacceptedasevidenceofpresenceiftheywereindicatedtooneofus. Foreachdirectsighting,date,time,GPSlocation,andage/sexcompositionwererecorded. 123 1030 BiodiversConserv(2017)26:1027–1046 If the presence of cubs was unequivocal, we recorded the adult as a female. All other sightings where the sex could not be determined were recorded as unknown. Families (female with dependent cubs) were recorded as evidence of reproduction. These records were based on physical evidence examined by at least one of the authors (i.e., ‘confirmed’) or sightings by experienced game guards (considered here as ‘sus- pected’). Cheetahs accompany their cubs on average 17 months (Caro 1994) and are known to cover multiple adjacent reserves (Farhadinia et al. 2013, 2016a). In order to avoiddoublecounting,wewereconservativeinestimatingthenumberofuniquefamilies. We regarded all records of a female with cubs within a 17-month period from the same area as a single family. Cheetah mortality We recorded all cheetah mortalities reported to us by hunters, game guards and cases reported to DoE. We considered a report as credible when there was supporting physical evidenceorconfirmationfromasecondarysource,suchastrainedgameguardsorexperts. Where possible, we recorded the cause of mortality, which was unequivocal in all cases wherepeopleweretheagents.Wherecheetahswerefounddead(usuallybygameguards) in the field with no evidence of human agency, we classified cases as ‘suspected natural causes’. Camera trapping and other photographic records UnlikemanyhabituatedcheetahpopulationsinAfrica,Asiaticcheetahsareextremelyshy andalsoliveatverylowdensities,whichposeachallengeforsurveysinIran(Hunteretal. 2007). Direct observations are rare and fleeting, so we also conducted cheetah surveys usingpassive infrared cameratraps. Camera-trapsare notmanufactured inIran, andtheir availability has been constrained by economic sanctions and high import costs. Accord- ingly,oureffortfocusedonsecuringevidenceofcheetahpresencefromaslargeasurvey areas as possible, rather than adhering to formal mark-recapture design (Karanth and Nichols 2002). Where possible, we designed surveys incorporating mark-recapture prin- ciples,forexample,whenalargenumberofcameraswereavailabletodeployatasingle site. Given the limited availability of equipment in Iran, a variety of brands were used, mainly from CamTrak (CamTrak South Inc., Watkinsville, Georgia, USA) between 2001 and 2006, later supplemented with cameras made by Panthera (New York, NY 10018, USA),DeerCam(DC-200model,ParkFalls,WI)andCuddebackCapture(GreenBay,WI, USA).Ineachintensivesurvey,between10and50cameraswereusedfor30to120 days (Supplemental Material Table 1). Cameras were placed in key features of the landscape preferredbycheetahs,suchasgametrails,driedwatercourses,‘playtrees’(i.e.,isolatedor prominenttreesthatcheetahsregularlyvisitforscentmarking),naturalspringsorartificial watersources.Wealsoprovidedcamerastoprotectedareas’personnelandtrainedthemin theirusetodeployopportunisticallyatpromisinglocations,forexample,followingrecent sightings of cheetahs or when fresh tracks were located, generating secondary sources of camera trap data, i.e., targeted camera trapping. Furthermore, we compiled all available photographs taken by game guards or visitors. We included images from both kinds of camera trapping effort (i.e., intensive surveys and targeted) as well as all opportunistic photosinasingledatabase.Anintervalofonehourbetweencameratrapimageswasused to recognize independent capture events. 123 BiodiversConserv(2017)26:1027–1046 1031 Individualsthatwerephotographedpost-2001(andtheonsetofcamera-trapping)were identified by discriminating unique spot patterns. Where possible, photo-trapped adult cheetahs were sexed by testes or dependent cubs. Age categorization was modified from MarkerandDickman(2003)infouragegroups:(1)Cubs(0–12 months);(2)Adolescents ([12 months to 18 months, still dependent on mother); (3) Sub-adults, or newly inde- pendentcheetahs([18 monthsto30 months),identifiedbypresenceoflongdorsalhairas a mane on their nape (Caro 1994); and (4) Adults ([30 months). The CACP effort was initially focused on five priority areas where cheetahs were knowntoexistpriorto2001,namelyNaybandanWildlifeRefuge(WR),TouranBiosphere Reserve(BR),KavirNationalPark(NP),BafqProtectedArea (PA)andDarehAnjirWR (Jourabchian 1999; Ziaie 2008). Accordingly, camera traps were initially deployed only withintheseareastogeneratedataontheextentofrangeandminimumnumbersthere.As reports or evidence of the species emerged from other sites and more camera-traps were acquired, the survey effort was expanded (Supplemental Material Table 2). Extent of occurrence Using occurrence data, we calculated ‘‘Extent of Occurrence (EOO)’’ for cheetahs. According to IUCN (2001), EOO is defined as ‘‘the area contained within the shortest continuousimaginaryboundarywhichcanbedrawntoencompassalltheknown,inferred or projected sites of present occurrence of a taxon, excluding cases of vagrancy. This measuremayexcludediscontinuitiesordisjunctionswithintheoveralldistributionsoftaxa (e.g., large areas of obviously unsuitable habitat). EOO can often be measured by a minimum convex polygon.’’ The Asiatic cheetah shows long inter-reserve movements in Iran(Farhadiniaetal.2013,2016a)andwebelievethatthecalculatedEOOcanprovidea reasonable estimate of the range loss trends in the country. Results Demography 1980–2001produced382cheetahsightings(not382uniqueindividuals)on180occasions. 1–7 cheetahs were seen per sighting (mean group size = 2.1, SE 0.1) with nearly half (48.3%) of records made up by sightings of solitary individuals. 2001–2012 yielded 873 records of cheetahs on 461 occasions. Except for an excep- tionally large group of ten individuals seen in November 2007 in Ariz No Hunting Area (NHA), 1–6 cheetahs were seen at a time (mean group size = 1.9, SE 0.6), with solitary sightings comprising more than half of the reports (53.6%). A total of 49827 trap nights of camera-trapping effort produced 283 independent photographs of 49 different cheetahs, 17 males, 10 females and 22 of unknown sex between 2001 and 2012 (Supplemental Material Table 1). Opportunistic, targeted camera trapping (49 independent events; Supplemental Material Table 3), identified 27 cheetah individuals, 9 of which were also photographed during systematic surveys. Accordingly, targetedeffortstoutilizelimitednumberofcameratrapshelpedtorecognize18cheetahs which were not recorded during surveys. Together with individuals identified from pho- tographstakenbygameguardsandvisitors(15cheetahindividuals),atotalof82different individuals were recorded between 2001 and 2012 in Iran. Overall, a balanced sex ratio 123 1032 BiodiversConserv(2017)26:1027–1046 (20:20)occurredamongsexedcheetahindividuals(Table 1).Onlysixcheetahindividuals were present in pictures for more than three years (5 males, 1 female). 73.2% (n = 60) cheetahs were recognized based on camera trap images whereas 36.6% (n = 30) were obtained by handheld cameras (eight individuals were photographed both ways) Post-2001, 32 different litters were recorded from 10 sites, of which 17 (53.1%) were confirmedbyimages.TouranBRproducedthelargestnumberofrecordsofbreedingwith atleast9differentfamilies(28.1%).Wefailedtoobtainevidenceofcheetahsbreedingin8 sites (Table 1). 75 cheetah cubs were individually identified since 2001, 56.0% (n = 42) Table1 DetailsoftheindividualcheetahsconfirmedindifferentareasofIranbetween2001and2012 No. Site Province No.cheetah No.cheetahdeathsa No No photographed cheetah cheetah families families confirmedb suspectedc 1 Touran Semnan 13(5M,5F,3U) 7(2M,3F,2C) 6 3 2 Kavir Semnan 2(1M,1U) 6(6U)d 0 1 3 Khosh Semnan 1(1U) 1(1U) 0 0 Yeilagh 4 Naybandan South 19(3M,3F, 2(1Mand1U) 1 3 Khorasan 13U) 5 Bafq Yazd 10(3M,3F,4U) 5(1M,1F,3C) 2 1 6 DarehAnjir Yazd 20(5M,4F, 3(2M,1U) 4 1 11U) 7 Siahkouh Yazd 4(3M,1F) 0 1 1 8 Ariz Yazd 1(1F) 0 0 0 9 Kalmand Yazd 0 6(3M,2F,1U) 0 2 10 Kamki Yazd 0 1(1U) 0 0 Bahabad 11 AbbasAbad Esfahan 1(1U) 0 0 1 12 Darband Kerman 1(1U) 7(3M,1F,3C) 0 1 13 Dorouneh Razavi 1(1F) 0 0 0 Khorasan 14 Miandasht North 7(2M,3F,2U) 0 3 3 Khorasan 15 ChahShirin Semnan 1(1U) 1(1F) 0 0 16 Boshrouyeh North 0 1(1U) 0 0 Khorasan 17 Rafsanjan Kerman 0 0 0 0 18 TakhtiIran Norkh 0 0 0 0 Khorasan Total 82(20M,20F, 40(12M,8F,8C, 17 15 42U) 12U) a Mmale,Ffemale,Ccub,andUunknownsex/age b Confirmedfamiliesareassociatedwithevidencesuchasfilmorphoto c Suspected families are reported by trained game guards and have beensometimes verifiedin the field basedontracksbutlackphysicalevidenceforcorroboration(seeMethods) d FourindividualswerereportedlykilledbyherdersoutsideKavirNPandtwoindividualswerefounddead insidethearea 123 BiodiversConserv(2017)26:1027–1046 1033 confirmedbycameratrapping.Afurther33cubswereobserved,mainlybyparkpersonnel, withoutcorroboratingphotographsbutwhichwereclearlyseparatedbytimeanddistance. Between 2001 and 2012, 42 different cheetahs were found dead (Table 2). Illegal anthropogenic killing, mainly by herders (and their dogs) or poachers was the greatest causeofdeath,accountingfor21individuals(50.0%),followedbyroadmortalitieswhich killed 12 cheetahs (28.6%; ten adults and two cubs), with almost equal sex ratio. Seven cases (17.5%) were due to suspected natural causes, including one individual which was killed by other carnivores. Wewereabletorecognizeatleast26cheetahindividualsbasedonimagesavailableof dead cheetahs, only three of which were also recorded during camera-trap surveys. Therefore, the minimum number of individual cheetahs we recorded between 2001 and 2012 is 105 (Tables 1, 2). Range and distribution ThecheetahhistoricallyoccurredwidelyacrossthecountrywithanestimatedtotalEOOof 1045,671 km2orapproximately63.4%of thecountry’sterritory(Fig. 1).Since2001,the cheetah is known from only the seven predominantly desert provinces of Yazd, Semnan, Esfahan,NorthKhorasan,Razavi Khorasan,SouthKhorasanand Kermanwithaputative extentofoccurrenceofapproximately242,500 km2(Fig. 1),equalto23.2%ofitshistoric occurrence. Between1980and2001,thecheetahwasconfirmedthroughdocumentedrecordsfrom elevensites,namelyArizNHA,BafqPA,DarehAnjirWR,DorounehPA,KamkiBahabad NHA,KavirNP,NaybandanWR,andTouranBR(Karami1992;Asadi1997;Jourabchian and Farhadinia 2008) as well as Khabr NP, Shahdad and Bahram-e Gour Protected Area (PA) (Jowkar 1999). Between 2001 and 2016, the cheetah was confirmed unequivocally from an additional seven sites (Supplemental Material Table 2). Furthermore, the chee- tah’s existence was considered as confirmed based on photographs of footprints in three additional areas, namely Rafsanjan County (Kerman Province), Takhti Iran NHA (North KhorasanProvince)andChahShirinNHA(SemnanProvince)during2000s.Noadditional evidenceisavailablefromtheseareasandreportsmayrepresenttransientindividuals,but countingallrecentrecords,Asiaticcheetahshaveoccurredinatleast21areassince1980. However, recent surveys in Khabr NP, Shahdad and Bahram-e Gour Protected Area (Ghoddousi et al. 2007; Jourabchian and Farhadinia 2008) have failed to find recent evidence of cheetahs in these areas, bringing the total number of known cheetah areas at the time of writing to 18 in seven provinces (Fig. 1). All sites except Rafsanjan and Boshrouyeh Counties are now officially protected by the Iranian government (see Sup- plemental Material Table 2). The following section summarises all records of cheetahs by region. Southern Alborz region (Tehran and Semnan Provinces) The cheetah originally occurred widely in the Southern Alborz region, including in and aroundthepresentextentofTehran.Nevertheless,recentsurveysyieldednorecordofthe cheetah presence in Jajroud PA, adjacent to Tehran (Eslami and Mahdavi 2007). Today, the closestknown cheetah population toTehran isin Kavir NP, approximately 75 kmtotheeast.Asadi(1997)estimatedapopulationof10–15individualsalthoughthree camera trapping surveys between 2003 and 2010 of[5300 trap nights (Supplemental Material Table 1) recorded only two individuals. One of those, an adult male first 123 1034 BiodiversConserv(2017)26:1027–1046 Table2 DetailsofcheetahmortalitiesinIranbetween2001and2012 Number Location Age Sex Dateofdeath Causeofdeath 1 Naybandan Adult Unknown 2001 Poacher;trapped 2 Kamki Adult Unknown August2002 Suspectednaturalcauses Bahabad 3 Bafq Cub Unknown June2003 Killedbyherder 4 Bafq Cub Unknown June2003 Killedbyherder 5 Bafq Cub Unknown June2003 Killedbyherder 6 Bafq Adult Unknown 2003 Unknown;founddeadnear railroad 7 Bafq Adult Unknown 2003 Unknown;founddeadnear railroad 8 DarehAnjir Adult Male(?) Summer2003 Suspectednaturalcauses 9 Kavir Adult Unknown 2004 Suspectednaturalcauses 10 Kalmand Adult Female January2005 Roadcollision 11 DarehAnjir Unknown Unknown 2008 Poacher 12 Bafq Adult Female December Roadcollision 2005 13 Kalmand Adult Male April2006 Roadcollision 14 Kavir Adult Unknown 2006 Suspectednaturalcauses 15 Kalmand Adolescent Male March2007 Roadcollision 16 Bafq Adult Male Summer2007 Leopard 17 Kalmand Adult Female April2008 Roadcollision 18 Kalmand Adult Female November Roadcollision 2008 19 Darband Adult Male December Roadcollision 2008 20 Darband Adult Male March2009 Poached;poisonedbyminers 21 Darband Adult Male March2009 Poached;poisonedbyminers 22 Touran Adult Male August2009 Suspectednaturalcauses 23 Touran Adult Female September Trappedbyapoacher 2009 24 Touran Adult Female July2010 Roadcollision 25 Touran Cub Male July2010 Roadcollision 26 Touran Cub Female July2010 Roadcollision 27 Kalmand Adult Unknown December Probablyroadcollision 2010 28 Naybandan Adult Male March2011 Suspectednaturalcauses 29 ChahShirin Adolescent Female 2011 Killedbyherder 30 DarehAnjir Adult Male Spring2012 Roadcollision 31 Boshrouyeh Adult Unknown Fall2010 Killedbyherder 32 Touran Adult Female Fall2012 Killedbyherder 33 Touran Adolescent Male Winter Killedbyherder 2012/13 34 Ardestan Unknown Unknown Killedbyherder 35 Ardestan Unknown Unknown Killedbyherder 36 Ardestan Unknown Unknown Killedbyherder 123 BiodiversConserv(2017)26:1027–1046 1035 Table2 continued Number Location Age Sex Dateofdeath Causeofdeath 37 Ardestan Unknown Unknown Killedbyherder 38 Darband Adult Female 2011–2012 Killedbyherder 39 Darband Cub Unknown 2011–2012 Killedbyherder 40 Darband Cub Unknown 2011–2012 Killedbyherder 41 Darband Cub Unknown 2011–2012 Killedbyherder 42 KhoshYeilaq Cub Unknown 2012 Killedbyherder Fig.1 HistoricalandpresentrangeoftheAsiaticcheetahinIran.Eachprovincenameislabelledonthe mapwhilenumbersdenoteareasmentionedinthetext.1Jajroud,2Kavir,3Parvar,4SefidkouhArask,5 KhoshYeilagh,6Touran,7Golestan,8TakhtiIran,9Miandasht,10HaftadGholleh,11Mouteh,12Kolah Ghazi,13Ardestan,14AbbasAbad,15Siahkouh,16DarehAnjir,17Ariz,18Abarkouh,19Kalmand,20 Bafq, 21 Kamki Bahabad, 22 Boshrouyeh, 23 Dorouneh, 24 Naybandan, 25 Darband, 26 Bakhtegan, 27 Burouyeh,28Bahram-e-Gour,29Rafsanjan,30Bidouyeh,31EbrahimAbad,32KhabrandRouchoun,33 Hormod,34FirouzAbad,35Hamoun,36Bampour photographedin2009hasbeenrepeatedlyphotographeduntilsummer2014,probablythe onlycheetahinKavirNP(Ghadirianetal.2010).Thelastsightingofthecheetahwithcubs dates to June 2007. 123 1036 BiodiversConserv(2017)26:1027–1046 During the late 1970s/early 1980s, an adult cheetah was kept by Iran DoE apparently captured near Damqan (Etemad 1985). The exact location of the cheetah’s capture is not reported but is likely to be from Sefidkouh Arask (N35.977304(cid:3)/E53.951118(cid:3); Asadi 1997).Duringthe1980sand1990s,cheetahsweresightedthereatleast35times,including observationofagroupoffivecheetahswhichwerefilmedbyalocalfilmcrew(A.Saffari pers. comm.). No unequivocal evidence of cheetah is known from Sefidkouh Arask since 1997whenadeadmalecheetah,probablyshot,wasfoundthere.Astuffedcheetahinthe Darabad Museum of Wildlife, Tehran is labeled as ‘Damqan, 1969’. Cheetahs were regularly reported around the city of Semnan until 2000, particularly from two reserves, Chah Shirin NHA (N34.727755(cid:3)/E54.059714(cid:3)) and Parvar PA (N35.778935(cid:3)/E53.424676(cid:3)).In2007,asinglecheetahwasreportedjustwithinthecityof Semnan (N35.580141(cid:3)/E53.404238(cid:3)) although there is no physical evidence and the ani- maldisappeared.TherearerecentreportsofthespeciesfromChahShirinNHA,including a female cheetah reportedly killed by herders in 2011, that require surveys to validate. Touran BR, in eastern Semnan Province, has been continually occupied by cheetahs until the present day (Etemad 1985; Asadi 1997; Farhadinia 2004; Ziaie 2008). Between 1990and2000,thecheetahwassightedtherearound20times,whileover150observations have been recorded since 2000, the difference largely due to increased survey effort. In 2009,39cheetahswereseenon16occasionsinTouranBR,almosttwicethetotalnumber ofsightingselsewhereinIran.Atleastthreecheetahshavebeenlivecapturedandremoved from Touran BR since 1984. Following negotiations between Iran and India to exchange Asiatic cheetah and Asiatic lion, a 7 month old male cheetah was captured in November 1984 and sent to Tehran. However, the exchange plan failed and the animal died in captivity. More recently, two cheetah cubs were captured illegally by local people in Touran BR, a 7 month old male (‘Koushki’) recovered in January 2008 (Jowkar et al. 2008)andafivemontholdfemale(‘Delbar’)recoveredinApril2011.Bothindividualsare presently in captivity in Tehran to establish a captive breeding program. Khosh Yeilagh WR (N36.571509(cid:3)/55.341439(cid:3)) was formerly famous for its uncom- monlyvisiblecheetahswhichcouldbeobservedhuntingurialwildsheep(Ovisorientalis) in hilly terrain (Firouz 1974; Goodwin and Holloway 1974; Dareshuri and Harrington 1976).Duringthe1970s–1980s,thepopulationwascrudelyestimatedat20–30(Dareshuri 1978;Joslin1984),whileinclusionofcubsintheguessedpopulationnumberhasnotbeen notedbytheauthors.In1970,ayoungfemalewasfoundinjuredinKhoshYeilaghandwas senttoTehranZoo.Theareaexperiencedseveredeteriorationintheearly1980swithfew subsequent sightings and the last cheetah was reported in 1983 (Aminian 1998). In May 2011, a pair of cheetahs was seen in Khosh Yeilagh, one of which was photographed. Kerman and Sistan–Baluchistan Provinces ExceptforonerecordofamalecheetahskinfromDamin(N27.433333(cid:3)/E60.783345(cid:3))in 1963 (Lay 1967; now stored in the Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago), the first official report of cheetahs in Kerman Province dates back to 1956 when one of us (HSh) saw two cheetahs killed in vicinity of city of Kerman. Later in 1970, a captured cheetah was sent to Tehran (Harrington 1971). Hasheminezhad (1996) provided five reports of cheetahs in around Khabr and Rouchoun NP and WR (N28.730532(cid:3)/E56.377323(cid:3)) between 1981 and 1988. There are sporadic, anecdotal reports from these provinces in recentyears(JahandariandAmeripers.comm.)althoughunequivocalreportsarerestricted toDarbandWR(N31.436527(cid:3)/E57.118438(cid:3))andRafsanjan(30.523611/55.348333)infar northern Kerman Province on the border with Yazd Province. Darband WR is located 123