Iran’s rare Asiatic Cheetah cub died on Tuesday due to kidney failure. It was one of the last survivors of three endangered Asiatic cheetah cubs who were born in captivity in Iran. The state media reported that the cub died at the Central Veterinary Hospital. The 10-month-old cheetah cub, named Pirouz was admitted to the hospital last Thursday and was undergoing dialysis.
“The loss of Pirouz and ineffectiveness of all the efforts made by the treatment team in the past few days to save the animal saddens me and all my colleagues, and we apologize to everyone that we could not keep this animal alive,” the hospital director Omid Moradi told IRNA.
Pirouz and his littermates were the first Asiatic cheetahs born in captivity in Iran. They were born in the Touran wildlife refuge in Semnan province under close monitoring by Iran’s environmental agency.
Pirouz is a Persian name, which means “victorious”. Pirouz had become a source of national pride since its birth in May last year at a wildlife refuge in northeastern Iran. The two other cubs that were born with him the same month died at a time when only a dozen members of the species were left in the wild.
Cheetah: Endangered species
According to the data from the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the Asiatic cheetah, Acinonyx jubatus venaticus, is threatened with “dangerous ongoing decline”.Cheetahs have faced extinction at least two times in the past after their populations were reduced, leading to inbreeding. Once again, cheetahs face extinction in the current times due to poor farming and their own poor ability to live in natural reserves.
According to a 2017 study referenced by IUCN, the sub-species is confined only to Iran where there were “less than 50 mature individuals.”
The world’s fastest land animal, capable of reaching speeds of 120 kilometres (74 miles) per hour, cheetahs once stalked habitats from the eastern reaches of India to the Atlantic coast of Senegal. They are still found in parts of southern Africa but have practically disappeared from North Africa and Asia.
Iran began a United Nations-supported cheetah protection program in 2001. In January 2022, deputy environment minister Hassan Akbari said Iran was home to only a dozen Asiatic cheetahs, down from an estimated 100 in 2010. Iran’s environment department had hoped the birth of the cubs in captivity would help increase the cheetah population.
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