![]() ![]() ![]() Overgrazing by sheep, goats, and camels has a negative impact on vegetation, and results in gully erosion in foothill areas. Kavir National Park, Touran Protected Area and Wildlife Refuge, Dareh Anjir and Neibaz Wildlife Refuge, and Miandasht Wildlife Refuge are the major protected areas in the region, and the most important havens for Asiatic cheetah. Human land use has altered vegetation by shifting grasslands towards scrublands of thorn cushions, and pushing back woodland, as evidenced by remnant groves in otherwise treeless areas. Winter wheat and alfalfa are widely grown, the latter of which is a high quality forage crop. To reclaim such land for crop production, it is often leached of soluble salts, and irrigated. Soils of this region naturally have low organic carbon and high salinity. Asiatic cheetahs are now thought to number fewer than 50 individuals, but are still killed by local herders and their dogs due to the unfounded belief that they predate on livestock Iran’s extensive and rapidly growing road network is another critical cause of their mortality. ![]() Onager are a subspecies of Asian wild ass with a total population of around 790 animals they are threatened by illegal hunting for their meat, hides, and fat, which are believed to have medicinal properties. Endemic species include Iranian ground-jay, thickhead rock gecko, Lut Desert toad-headed agama, black tail tip three-toed jerboa, onager, and the Asiatic cheetah. Goitered gazelle, chinkara, striped hyena, and caracal still roam the deserts, and the hottest and driest regions are home to the nocturnal Rüppell's fox. Extremely arid zones host open shrublands of wormwood and gum tragacanth, and sand dunes harbour endemic plants such as Astragalus kavirensis and Heliotropum rudbaricum. Non-saline regions abound with thorn cushions, whilst saltworts and saxauls grow on the margins of saltpans. Vegetation is usually represented by dwarf scrub. The Dasht-e-Kavir in the North is a vast saline desert, whilst the Dasht-e-Lut in the South is largely a sand and gravel desert, famed for its spectacular windswept features: streamlined towers of rock called kaluts and extensive stony pavements called hamadas.Įlsewhere, landscapes host marshes, lakes, dry steppes, and semi-deserts, and the ground is often highly saline several rivers, rich in soluble salts, descend into the plateau from the surrounding mountains. There is a temperate, continental desert climate with extreme temperatures the region’s two major deserts are amongst the hottest and driest places in the world. This ecoregion covers Iran’s central plateau, reaching into a small part of Northwest Afghanistan. Image credit: Behnam Ghorbani, Creative Commons The flagship species of the Central Persian Desert Basins ecoregion is the Asiatic cheetah. Nonetheless, seemingly improbable shrublands host sand cat, crown sandgrouse, Asian houbara, onager, and the magnificent Asiatic cheetah. This unearthly landscape, where temperatures have been known to climb as high as 70☌, would seem to truly stretch life to its limits. Vast, parched expanses either shimmer ethereally with white salt, or are strewn with a sea of rocks. Forceful winds whip lofty towers of rock and clay into spectacular formations, and cause immense, golden sand dunes to shift and sway. Baked beneath a blazing sun, this colossal expanse of sand and rock has been sculpted by extreme elemental forces. ![]()
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