There Are Only 27 Asiatic Cheetahs Left in the Wild. War in Iran Could Wipe Out World's Rarest Big Cat

Summary

Before the war began in February 2026, there was some rare good news for Iran’s imperiled Asiatic cheetahs. Rangers spotted and filmed a female in the North Khorasan province accompanied by five cubs — a first. No more than four had ever been seen before, and every individual counts. The Asiatic cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus venaticus) is the world’s most endangered big cat, and the number counted in the wild rose to 27. Bagher Nezami, national director of the Conservation of the Asiatic Cheetah Project, told Iranian state-controlled media that these were “ID-carded” cheetahs, known individuals being monitored by researchers. Another five remain in breeding sites and six in captivity, he said. This represented a significant leap: In August last year, the Tehran Times reported that just 20 were left in the wild. Nine days after the sighting of the five cubs, the United States and Israel launched coordinated strikes on Iran, prompting a swift retaliation that has since escalated into a regional conflict with global repercussions — and poses a new threat to a big cat that hovers on the brink of extinction. A species on the brink The Asiatic cheetah was once found throughout Central and Southwest Asia, with a range that spanned from the Arabian Peninsula to the Caspian Sea and as far east as India. However, this cat was extirpated from most of its range during the 20th century through a deadly combination of hunting, habitat loss and prey depletion. It is now relegated to just 16% of its former territory, confined within Iran. There hasn’t been physical evidence of the cat’s presence elsewhere since 1982. This cheetah was designated as a protected species in Iran in 1959 and was the focus of conservation efforts through the 1960s and ’70s. But the tumult that followed the 1979 Iranian Revolution, and later the Iran-Iraq war, have been referred to as “lost years” for the species’ conservation. By the 1990s, the Asiatic cheetah had almost completely disappeared, their numbers thinned by vehicle collisions, poaching, human-wildlife conflict, prey depletion and habitat loss. The IUCN, the global wildlife conservation authority, designated the subspecies critically endangered in 2008. Efforts to save the cheetahs have been fraught with difficulty, due in part to geopolitical tensions, particularly over the last decade. The Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation case, in which nine cheetah conservationists were accused of espionage and imprisoned in 2018, brought international scientific collaboration to a grinding halt. Western sanctions on Iran have also taken a toll. “Critical activities such as monitoring, law enforcement and the development of wildlife-friendly infrastructure have declined,” the authors of a 2025 study in the journal People and Nature wrote. “These limitations have contributed to a decrease in prey availability and an increase in direct cheetah mortality, particularly from road accidents.” In June 2025, the 12-day war with Israel and the U.S. led the Iranian government to impose tighter restrictions on key cheetah conservation activities, including fieldwork and data collection. But there had been cautious optimism about resumed collaboration with international partners, which would contribute invaluable resources and expertise. In August last year, an official told state media that cheetah conservation was “among the top priorities” of the Department of Environment. “The [possible] extinction of the world’s rarest cat has become a symbol of our challenges and responsibilities towards Iran’s nature,” said department head Shina Ansari. New war, new threats Iran’s remaining cheetahs are scattered across fragmented, rugged habitats, including the vast, arid Dasht-e Kavir (Kavir Desert) which spans central Iran’s Yazd, Semnan, Kerman and Isfahan provinces. It encompasses designated protected areas, wildlife refuges and national parks. Military sites in some of these provinces have been the target of U.S. and Israeli strikes. This has raised fears among conservationists who worry that their vehicles could be misidentified or even targeted, “particularly in remote desert landscapes where cheetahs live,” a local conservationist told Mongabay, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons. Sarah Durant, a cheetah expert and research scientist at the Zoological Society of London, emphasized the critical role that field scientists, park rangers and Indigenous peoples play in safeguarding biodiversity. It makes their protection during armed conflict “a matter of urgent international concern,” she said. Their work places them in considerable danger, she said, but “unlike humanitarian workers, there is currently no international formal recognition of the status of conservation actors.” She added that “such recognition could help shield [them] from attack to enable them to continue their vital — and globally important — work of biodiversity protection.” Since the outbreak of war, access to protected areas and key cheetah habitats for nongovernmental conservationists has been severely restricted and efforts have “slowed down considerably,” with interruptions to long-term monitoring, camera trapping and field surveys, according to Mongabay’s anonymous source. “For the Asiatic cheetah, this situation is particularly critical,” they said. “With such a small remaining population, any disruption in protection and monitoring can have serious consequences. Reduced presence [of conservationists] on the ground and lower prioritization increases the risks of poaching, road mortality and habitat disturbance.” Most environmental NGOs in Iran have paused their work. Communication is difficult or impossible, with the country in the grip of an ongoing internet shutdown. “The current situation has intensified existing challenges,” the anonymous source said. “Conservation in Iran has already been under significant pressure due to security concerns, limited funding, and weak institutional support. Now, these constraints are even more severe.” Remote habitats are experiencing what bird conservationist and environmental educator Iman Ebrahimi, who’s based in Isfahan, called “unique consequences of war.” “In those areas,” he said, “you sometimes see an unusual situation. Neither rangers nor poachers are active. In the short term, this can benefit wildlife and increase security, but it raises serious concerns about long-term sustainability once conditions change.” He noted that online monitoring systems have been disrupted, leading to a greater dependence on physical patrolling, which now comes with new risks. Community-based conservation is also affected, as local communities face economic and security concerns. Crises “tend to reduce participation in governance,” the unnamed conservationist said. “Nongovernmental involvement declines sharply, and conservation becomes more centralized and state-controlled. In Iran, this shift is particularly concerning, as effective conservation has always depended on collaboration and trust between different actors,” they said. “The shrinking space for nongovernmental engagement is one of the most serious risks to conservation outcomes.” So far, the impact of war on conservation writ large, Ebrahimi said, is “quite uneven. It is not simply negative or positive, but very context dependent.” “What is really interesting is that areas where conservation has been more socially embedded, where protection is supported by local people and relationships rather than only formal enforcement, seem to be holding up better under these conditions,” he added. Conservation tech Unlike their plains-dwelling African counterparts, the Asiatic cheetahs prefer to live in hilly terrain, and they’re notoriously difficult to monitor, with large ranges and low population density. Therefore, conservationists rely heavily on motion-triggered camera traps to track and identify individual cats. Import restrictions have limited or prevented the acquisition of high-quality conservation tech, and the use of satellite or SIM-enabled devices is currently not permitted. The use of camera traps sparked controversy in 2018, when conservationists from the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation were arrested and accused of espionage. However, the use of camera traps for cheetah monitoring has since resumed. Meanwhile, GPS collars that track animal movements are among the most important gear in the conservation toolbox for wide-ranging or elusive species. Biologists fitted cheetahs with GPS collars in 2007, and also used them to study Persian leopards (Panthera pardus saxicolor) in 2014. Research released last year noted that while camera traps offer valuable data about the presence of cheetahs, they “fall short in revealing fine-scale movement patterns.” The authors recommended using GPS collars. “Satellite telemetry is crucial to fill this gap, especially with fewer than 30 individuals remaining,” the report said. “GPS collars can provide essential insights into habitat use, movements and survival, enabling more effective conservation strategies. Roads to extinction Despite the imminent risk of extinction, cheetah conservationists mark “rare moments of encouragement.” The female cheetah filmed in Miandasht Wildlife Refuge in February is well-known to conservationists, who call her Helia. She was sighted back in August 2022 in Turan Biosphere Reserve with four cubs, but the following month, a camera trap showed her with just two. In 2024, Helia was seen again with another two cubs in Miandasht Wildlife Refuge. It was the first confirmed sighting of a cheetah in the area in six years, and she’d traveled more than 130 kilometers (80 miles) to get there from the Turan reserve. However, one of the two cubs was hit by a vehicle on the so-called “Death Road,” the Meyami–Sabzevar route that cuts through Semnan province in the northern part of the country. For seven nights after the death of her cub, Helia stayed near the road, and volunteers stood by to block traffic in case she and her remaining baby attempted to cross again. Prior to that incident, officials had been celebrating zero cheetah road deaths for the year. More than half of all recorded cheetah deaths in Iran are caused by road accidents. With so few Asiatic cheetahs remaining, each death delivers a blow to the subspecies’ prospects for survival. This was highlighted by one particularly devastating case in 2023, when a female cheetah was hit and killed on a road outside the city of Meyami in Semnan province, east of Tehran. An autopsy revealed she was pregnant with three cubs. Efforts to reduce wildlife mortality have included putting up fences, installing cameras, enforcing speed limits, and creating culverts that run under the roads; studies show that cheetahs use these underpasses. Future in the balance The few wild cheetahs left in Iran are “ID-carded” with a three-digit number that documents the sex and provides samples of spot patterns from the shoulder, flank and rump. As with a human fingerprint, each cheetah’s spots are unique to the individual. Besides preventing deaths from vehicles, human-wildlife conflict and poaching, there’s been significant debate over how best to secure the subspecies’ future. Asiatic cheetahs are beset by low genetic diversity and inbreeding, which threatens immunity and long-term survival for any species. Iran’s experiments with captive breeding have met with no real success. Meanwhile, fewer than half of cubs survive beyond their first year, according to a decade of monitoring data included in a study released last year. Some experts advocate for the introduction of African cheetahs to expand the gene pool. Conservationists say in-situ solutions are what’s required, and preferably, a holistic approach rather than a single-species focus. “Prey species such as gazelles and wild ungulates are also under increased pressure,” the unnamed conservationist said. “Hunting may rise due to economic hardship, and reduced enforcement in protected areas makes the situation worse. This directly impacts the cheetah, as prey availability is essential for its survival.” There are other serious concerns. Iran’s arid center faces severe threat from climate change and the region has suffered through several consecutive years of drought — something that has a devastating impact on ecosystems and the species that depend on them. The anonymous conservationist said it’s important to understand that conservation in Iran is “not limited by lack of knowledge or commitment. The main constraints are structural and contextual.” Despite the many risks and challenges, they said, “many conservationists continue their work under extremely difficult conditions.” Conservation efforts may not resume when the bombs stop falling. “Post-conflict recovery efforts very rarely consider the environment, much less wildlife … especially when there is a humanitarian crisis going on,” Peter Zahler, director of field conservation for Zoo New England, told Mongabay by email. “It is absolutely critical that conservation efforts try to continue despite — and because of — conflict.” The damage inflicted so far in this war will likely mean a reduction in resources dedicated to conservation, said Jamshid Parchizadeh. He’s a research scientist at Michigan State University who has worked as a wildlife biologist in Iran on projects involving leopards, cheetahs, bears, wolves, hyenas and deer. “When this war is over — if it is ever over — the government of Iran [will have] to spend all the money it has on rebuilding the country, including infrastructure that has been damaged or obliterated during the war,” Parchizadeh said. “People’s homes have been damaged or destroyed, and it is obvious that they will need somewhere to live. Who should help these homeless people? This requires a lot of money. These will become the priorities for the government.” “Before the war, cheetah conservation received limited funding from the government,” Parchizadeh said. “But after the war, I doubt that the government has any money left for the conservation of the cheetah.” This article originally appeared in Mongabay. Citations: Taktehrani, A., Shah Hosseini, M., Gholikhani, N., Hobeali, K., Karimi, M. 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