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Killing A Cat Supposed to be Cheetah Ardestan

Ardestan, July 17, 2003 - A spotted cat was killed by a villager near the city of Ardestan, 100 km northern Esfahan. 

Over a period of 1 months, villagers in Zafarghand, some 20 km southern Ardestan reported that a cheetah regularly attacks their chickens and hens inside their home. Finally Ali Mahdavi (right picture), a 70 years old villager encountered the animal in one afternoon sitting on the wall just ate his 12 chickens (the animal passed through the hole with less than 20 cm width on the wall to reach the chickens -bottom picture) . So he immediately shot the animal which was applauded by his neighbors due to killing "The Thief Cat". Within a few hours, Game Guards from the Esfahan Department of the Environment who received a report on a killed cheetah arrived to the village to verify it, but they reported the animal was not a cheetah. Unfortunately, the body was gave up outside the village and the species was not identified. So Mohammad Farhadinia (director of ICS), Mohammad Beheshti and Arash Sadeghi (two volunteer members from Esfahan) departed to the area, but did not find the body except some hairs which their spotted pattern indicated that the animal was a lynx. It was for the first time that a lynx was reported from the desert habitats of Esfahan. Once Ardestan was of the cheetah habitats in Iran, but it is more than 10 years no reliable report have been made from the area. The area is composed of vast expanses of plains inhabited by a fairly good number of Persian gazelle Gazelle Subgutturosa and borders with Kavir National Park, a cheetah habitat in North.