Two Cheetahs and a Leopard have been captured in Bafgh - Iran

Arash Ghoddousi (Wildlife section of paln4land): The latest effort for protecting the Asiatic cheetah in Iran has taken place in Bafgh protected area with the aim of radio collaring. On 26th, 27th of Feb.2007, two cheetahs and a leopard were captured successfully in Eshkaft Valley.

Conservation of Asiatic cheetah project (C.A.C.P) and wild life conservation Society (W.C.S) decided to capture few cheetahs by leg- traps for radio collaring study in Bafgh P.A.

Study Site:

Bafgh P.A. With 88527 hectares is located S.E Yazd city. (Central Iran)
This area is one of the Five Major Asiatic cheetah habitats which has been Protected by C.A.C.P since 4 years ago.
Presence of Both cheetahs and leopards has been confirmed by camera trapping.
Dr.Luke Hunter (W.C.S) chose this area as the first Live-Capturing site.

Traps site:

Eshkaft Valley is one of the main corridors of cheetahs and with help of Ali Khajehii (game-guard) and Guy Blame leg-traps were set.

Traps are located in big cat’s home ranges scent-marking spot.
These hot spots are usually old trees in the valleys.

Setting Traps:

Traps are made from simple but effective materials, which have been tested several times in different countries. These traps are equipped with radio Transmitters.

Checking the traps:

By setting 2 camps in both sides of Eshkaft valley, every 2 hours traps were checked by radio receivers.
Reaching the captured animal in less Than 3 hours will minimize the possible injury.

Tranquilization, Placing radio-collar, Biometry and sampling:

Reaching the traps and tranquilization takes place as soon as possible .After darting placing radio-collar, biometry and sampling blood and tissue and also recovery will be done as the protocol. These radio-collars have been used for cheetahs and Leopards contains a GPS, VHF transmitter and cut off system.

Finally a cheetah:

On 16:00 of 26th Feb 2007 after19 days of Waiting in hot sunny days and freezing nights, there was the first Asiatic cheetah in the trap.
The process of tranquilization and recovery took place from 17:30 till 20:30.

This mature male cheetah was named Mana(M1) (Persian name for immortality)The same night on 1:30 AM 27th 2007 second cheetah was captured.
The capturing team of both cheetahs were camp ones crew including Guy Balme(W.C.S)
Arash Ghoddosi (plan4land) and Dr.Kamran Kashiri (C.A.C.P).

At 27th of Feb2007 on 8:30 signals called us for third capture. This time a large male Leopard was waiting for us. After calling Camp two crew including: Houman Jowkar(C.A.C.P),Dr.Chris Walzer(W.C.S), Dr.Nadia Robert (Berne university) and Sepideh Kashani.
The whole methods were done.
This program is still following by C.A.C.P and W.C.S
Arash Ghoddosi, Delaram Ashayeri, Naghme Naghiloo, Hamed Moshiri (plan4land)