Dr. Assaf Rosenthal/Who is afraid of returning cheetahs to the wild in the Negev?

Dr. Assaf Rosenthal

A rare photograph of a herd of cheetahs in central Iran. Less than 60 cheetahs live in Asia today

https://www.hayadan.org.il/rosental040905.html

In the late XNUMXs, rumors of tiger sightings in the Judean Desert began to arrive. At that time I was an inspector of the "authority" in Ein-Gadi and its surroundings and of course I was looking for signs of the presence of tigers, all I found were tracks, dung and signs of predation.
Only in 1971, with the active help of my colleagues in Ein-Gadi and Giura Ilani who started working as a "southern zoologist", we managed to photograph and document (for the first time in modern history) a tigress that ate a yael in Ein-Gadi. My colleague and friend Giura Ilani (later the "tiger man") began marking and tracking the tigers. We came to the conclusion that there are two remnant populations in Israel, one in the south of the Judean Desert and the other in the Negev Mountains. To augment them with additional tigers from outside sources, the search for such sources led to Jabal-el-Guna in Egypt, where the population is close to our tigers, but Egypt was an enemy country, another place where there was a population of tigers similar to the tigers of the country was Iran, tigers from Africa were not considered because They belong to a large and different subspecies, Iran was a friendly country, and with the establishment of the wildlife in its favor, wild animals from Iran were brought to the reserve, wild animals that were released into the wild many days and are now "making soldiers". It was clear to all involved in the issue that returning a predator to the wild is a much more difficult and complicated act, but Giora did not let go of the idea, but in "Roshat" the arteries began to become calcified and embarking on such an adventure was taken off the agenda at once. In the meantime, relations with Iran have also been disrupted and the future is known.
Today the population of tigers in Israel is dwindling mainly because of (human) harm to females and the chances of survival of tigers in Israel are slim. All of this was written because of a news item I saw on the BBC. According to the news, photos were taken of a family of cheetahs, a female and her four six-month-old cubs, in the Dar-e-Anijir reserve. The reserve is on a dry level in the center of Iran, and the photos were taken with an automatic camera that was placed in an attempt to document the rare and unique predator, it is estimated that there are about sixty individuals in the area who subsist by hunting deer, rabbits, voles, and rodents.
According to the photos, it can be seen that the environment is similar to the "big streams" areas in the Negev, an area where, according to the evidence, there were cheetahs until the beginning of the twentieth century.
In the sixties there were rumors of encounters with cheetahs, but today it is clear that there are no cheetahs in our vicinity, there is no reason why they were hunted. Today, after years of nature conservation, the recovery of the deer population, renewal of populations of wildebeest and rams, possible renewal of the ostrich population, extensive protection and enforcement of the ban on harming desert animals, there is definitely a chance and possibility for cheetahs to live in our area, there are a number of barriers to the release of a relatively large predator to areas that are not far away Relatively from settlements, but it must be remembered that the Asian cheetah: smaller than its African counterpart, the cheetah eats relatively small prey and is afraid of people, since there are no settlements (apart from the Bedouin who stay without a permit) in the areas suitable for it to live, that raise canes, therefore the fear of harming a person or his property is null. Another obstacle is the need to find a source from which cheetahs will be imported, the cheetahs in Iran are members of the same subspecies that existed in Israel and are therefore certainly suitable (the political problems can be overcome through contacts through international conservation bodies). The question will be asked, if there are only sixty individuals in Iran, why would they agree to "dilute" them?
If so according to the pictures (and this is often the case), the mother managed to raise four cubs and bring them to the age of six months, female cheetahs give birth to three to six cubs and many manage to raise three to four, but the most difficult stage in the lives of young people which only about 25% manage to pass is after they are separated from their mother, That is, of the four cubs in the picture, only one will reach full maturity, therefore there is room and possibility to capture the three weak cubs (they can be identified) and raise them as a breeding nucleus for future release into the wild.
The right place in terms of nature conservation to release Asiatic cheetahs is the Negev. The Great Nahalim Reserve, which is a large and extensive area, as well as Makhtesh-Ramon. At this point, all this is nothing more than a dream or wishful thinking, since the biggest obstacle to such a project is the deposits of lime collected in the "PA pipeline" and until it is washed away, maybe we will have relations with Iran?

In the photo: one tenth of the cheetahs in Asia

Two herds of rare Asiatic cheetahs have been spotted in central Iran in recent months, raising hopes that one of the world's fastest animals will be saved from extinction on the Asian continent, Iranian conservation experts said Saturday.

According to Hosheng Zaei, from Iran's Environmental Protection Organization, in August scientists noticed four adult cheetahs, and two months earlier, cameras placed in the area caught a female cheetah and her four cubs, resting in the shade of a tree. "The two discoveries from the last few months are very encouraging," said Zaye, who heads the project to protect the Asiatic cheetah in Iran, which is shared by the government, the United Nations and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). According to him, the two flocks recently observed are the largest ever photographed in Asia.

The fate of the Asiatic cheetah, whose habitat in Asia used to stretch from the Red Sea to India, currently hangs in the balance. Less than sixty individuals live on the continent - most of them in the arid plains of central Iran. At least 15 cheetahs are known to have been killed in the last 15 years in Iran by hunters or shepherds who feared for the lives of their cattle. However, according to Peter Zeller of the Wildlife Conservation Society, it appears that the number of cheetahs killed is greater.

In the seventies of the twentieth century, the number of cheetahs in Iran was estimated at 100 to 400, but hunting of the cheetahs and their prey in the years after the Khomeinist revolution, along with the depletion of their habitat due to cattle grazing, brought these animals to the brink of extinction.

According to Zaler, conservation efforts focus on two avenues: increasing awareness of the cheetah's dire situation among residents living in its habitat, and an attempt to reduce grazing in these areas, partly by buying grazing land from rural areas. The local population, says Zaler, responded positively to the initiative, and this is not surprising considering that cheetahs, formerly known as "hunting tigers", had a special status in Iranian history: they were trained by the ancient rulers to hunt doe and were a symbol of wealth and power.

The Asiatic cheetah disappeared from most of the territory of the Middle East about a century ago, although it was observed in Saudi Arabia until the 1947s. He disappeared from India in XNUMX, and according to disputed reports was in Central Asia from the XNUMXs to the XNUMXs.

According to estimates, there are less than ten thousand cheetahs living in Africa. Their habitat is disappearing and there is little protection for them.

A compilation of Dr. Assaf Rosenthal's articles on the Hidan site
https://www.hayadan.org.il/BuildaGate4/general2/data_card.php?Cat=~~~257498700~~~218&SiteName=hayadan