Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 5
By Umid Niayesh - Trend:
One pair of threatened honey badger species were killed savagely in Baft city in south eastern Kerman Province, Iranian Environment and Wildlife Watch news portal reported on Feb. 4.
The killed honey badgers had entered the outskirts of Baft to find food in the snow-hit region, the report said.
The Honey badger is included in the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species. The honey badger (Mellivora capensis), also known as the ratel is a species of mustelid native to Africa, Southwest Asia, and the Indian Subcontinent.
Honey badgers are considered rare or to exist at low densities across most of their range.
According to the IUCN Red List website, ratels are directly targeted (through the use of, for example, steel-jawed traps and poisons) by apiculturists and small livestock farmers throughout their range, and are also indirectly killed by non-selective control programs targeting other species.
As of 2001, 20 of Iran's mammal species and 14 bird species are endangered. Endangered species in Iran include the Baluchistan bear, Asiatic Cheetah, Caspian Seal, Persian fallow deer, Siberian white crane, hawksbill turtle, green turtle, Oxus cobra, Latifi's viper, dugong, Persian leopard, Caspian Sea Wolf, and dolphins.