Lecture: Iranian big cat research & conservation- by Mohammad Farhadinia

Iran’s mountains provide one of Asia’s securest habitats for big cats, and the country is home to eight species.  However, those same mountains also make research very difficult and exciting, and so we’re pleased to be getting a report from the front line of that research. Iranian Mohammad Farhadinia has been engaged in wild cat conservation since the age of 16, and studied the Asiatic cheetah and the Persian leopard while at the University of Tehran.  Mohammad has established and worked with various study and conservation organizations for which he has also received a number of national and international awards and has recently joined Oxford University to pursue further research. Mohammad Farhadinia’s presentation to the ENHG-AD on March 3^rd will begin with a brief overview of the work of the Iranian Cheetah Society and will then focus in on his doctoral research related to the conservation of the Persian Leopard in Iran. His talk will be accompanied by footage of these animals in the field. The meeting on Tuesday 3^rd March will gather at 7:00pm, and the talk will start at 7:30pm. We will meet in our usual venue: Salon 1 at the Park Hyatt Abu Dhabi Hotel and Villas, located on Saadiyat Island.

About the Speaker :Born in Iran, Mohammad Farhadinia has been engaged in wild cat conservation since the age of 16 when he began compiling a dataset of observations on the Asiatic cheetah, Mohammad studied the Asiatic cheetah and the Persian leopard while complting his Bachelor and Master of Science degrees at the University of Tehran.

In 2001, Mohammad established the Iranian Cheetah Society (ICS) (www.wildlife.ir), a nonprofit organization dedicated to the conservation of cheetahs and other wild carnivores. Since its founding, the Society has become an important player in Iran’s wildlife conservation efforts, with projects focused on the Asiatic cheetah, the Persian leopard, and the brown bear. In 2008, Mohammad joined the Conservation of the Asiatic Cheetah Project (CACP) – a comprehensive conservation program established by Iran’s Department of the Environment (DOE), and carried out with Panthera, the Wildlife Conservation Society and the United Nations Development Programme. As a CACP consultant, Mohammad supervises research efforts, capacity building initiatives, student programs, and educational plans. He also leads Iran’s Persian leopard conservation efforts in the Caucasus, and has represented Iran in international meetings and symposia. He has also received a number of national and international awards, such Future for Nature Award in 2009, received from Sir David Attenborough, National Youth Award (2010) and Panthera’s Rabinowitz-Kaplan Prize for the Next Generation in Wild Cat Conservation (2012).

Recently, Mohammad was admitted to University of Oxford, where he will pursue his doctoral degree at the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU). Through this degree, Mohammad plans to focus his research on a comprehensive ecological investigation of the Persian leopard.

 If anyone wants to attend but needs a ride, please contact ENHG Chairman Keith Taylor at kjtaylor13@yahoo.com.