Iran to cooperate with Russia for saving tigers and leopards

[Guest guest]

*http://www.tehrantimes.com/index_View.asp?code=218168* *April 25, 2010 **Iran

receives Siberian tigers

*

 

*Tehran Times Science Desk*

 

*TEHRAN - Iran received two Siberian tigers from Russia on Friday and gave

Russia two Persian leopards in exchange. *

 

*The Siberian tigers were delivered to Tehran’s Eram Zoo and the Persian

leopards had been kept at Pardisan Park, which is also in the Iranian

capital.

 

Iran received the Siberian tigers from Russia as part of an Iranian-Russian

project to reestablish a tiger population in the country, Press TV reported.

 

 

Iran was once home to the now extinct Caspian tiger, which is also known as

the Mazandaran tiger.

 

“In order to revive the species, two Siberian tigers were brought from

Russia, including a pregnant tigress expected to give birth to a cub in two

months,” Iranian Vice President for Environmental Protection Mohammad Javad

Mohammadizadeh said on Friday.

 

Zoologists will take care of the two animals at Tehran’s Eram Zoo for about

a month, and then they will be transferred to a habitat in the northern

province of Mazandaran, he explained.

 

The tigers will remain under the close observation of Russian zoologists for

five years, and Iranian specialists will take care of the Persian leopards

which were sent to Russia, added Mohammadizadeh, who is also the head of

Iran's Department of the Environment.

 

The two tigers will be released in their new habitat near the city of

Miankaleh in the northern province of Mazandaran, he stated.

 

Mohammadizadeh explained that the northern reserve is where the last

Mazandaran tigers were seen more than 40 years ago and noted that the region

enjoys ecological and nutritional conditions favorable to the newcomer

tigers, which will be closely monitored and looked after by a team of

Iranian and Russian zoologists.

 

According to an agreement signed in Tehran on February 20, 2010 with Russian

Minister of Natural Resources and Ecology Yury Trutneve, which had the

backing of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, two Iranian leopards were to be

delivered to Russia in return for the two tigers, he said.

 

Earlier, Russian officials had asked Iran to help revive the Persian leopard

population in Russia.

 

The Persian leopards are to be kept near the city of Sochi.

 

According to The Daily Telegraph, Caucasian or Persian leopards disappeared

from the Caucasus Mountains around the resort of Sochi in southern Russia in

the 1920s due to excessive hunting.

 

The latest genetic studies have shown that the Siberian tiger, also known as

the Amur tiger, is related and virtually identical to the now extinct

Caspian tiger.

 

The discovery was made when researchers from the U.S. National Cancer

Institute (NCI) Laboratory of Genomic Diversity in Frederick, Maryland,

sequenced parts of five mitochondrial genes from tissue samples from 20

Caspian tiger specimens collected by University of Oxford researchers from

museums across Eurasia.

 

It was found that the Caspian tiger's mitochondrial DNA is only one letter

of genetic code separated from Siberian tiger DNA, while it is readily

distinguishable from the DNA of other tiger subspecies, indicating that the

Caspian and the Siberian subspecies are really one.*