A cheetah on the edge of extinction has become the unlikely catalyst for something even more rare: a show of unity between political foes.

Iranian and Western wildlife experts have joined forces to save the Asiatic cheetah from disappearing, despite a bitter dispute between their governments over Iran's nuclear ambitions.

Fewer than 100 of the sleek cats remain, roaming the deserts of central Iran. Now Iran's Department of Environment has teamed up with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to trap and track them before they disappear forever.

“This is a wonderful case of the urgent conservation needs of the cheetah transcending political differences,” said Luke Hunter of Panthera, a non-governmental organisation in New York.

“Iranians and Americans realise that we cannot allow politics to affect the cheetahs. If we did, we could lose them,” he said.

Iranian officials echoed the sentiment: “I love anybody who works for conservation and wildlife protection. It doesn't matter who it is,” said Ali Akhbar Karimi, an official with the Department of Environment in Yazd province, where the remaining cheetahs survive.

In his recent tours of the Middle East, President Bush urged America's allies to isolate Iran over its nuclear programme, saying that the safety of the world was at stake.

But the safety of the cheetahs appears to have trumped such concerns. Researchers say that the animals, also known as Iranian cheetahs, once roamed between the Arabian peninsula and India, thriving in the arid, rugged landscape.

After the Iranian Revolution of 1979 the cheetah and its principal prey, gazelles, were hunted, causing their numbers to dwindle dangerously low.

The revolution also prompted the US to sever ties with the Islamic Republic.

The UNDP launched the $750,000 cheetah campaign in 2001 with Iran's Department of Environment. The Zoological Society of London also contributes funding. The conservation work has so far established anti-poaching measures, and new game guards stabilise the cheetah population.

Last year wildlife experts renewed their efforts, trying to trap up to eight of the animals and track them with special collars.

So far only two cheetahs have been caught. One of them was killed later by a leopard in a fight over food.

But Houman Jowkar, an Iranian biologist and field director for the US-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) in Yazd, remains unfazed. The programme, he said, was already showing signs of success.

“We know the area better, we know the habitat better and probably we can catch more cheetahs,” he said, adding: “We need to do something urgent to save them. It is a national treasure.”

Peter Zahler, another WCS official, was even more optimistic, suggesting that the joint effort to save the cheetahs could spark wider diplomacy:

“In fact, engaging in such activities has a long history all over the world of bringing peoples, who are otherwise at odds on certain issues, to the table over a subject with which they are all in agreement.”

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