CHEETAH CHANCE

May 20, 2022

With Iran recently reporting its campaign to save the endangered Asiatic cheetah was failing, a ray of hope appeared when a cheetah gave birth to triplets May 1. But over the next two weeks, two of littermates died.

They were the first births in Iran of a cheetah in captivity. Last January, Deputy Environment Minister Hassan Akbari said the preservation effort was failing with the number of cheetahs in Iran down to 12 from the estimated 100 in 2010 when the conservation effort began.

The cubs were born by cesarean section in the Touran Wildlife Refuge in Semnan province. The mother rejected all three and they were then fed by hand by the refuge staff. The first of the newborn cheetah cubs died of a congenital malformation of the left lung.

The cause of the death of the second has not yet been determined. The cheetah is the world’s fastest land animal, able to reach a speed of 120 kilometers an hour (75 mph).