For this news item we move more than 700 km west of Tandoureh to another site where the Project is active. The Dohezar-Sehezar No Hunting Area is located in the northern valleys of the Alborz mountains in Mazandaran province and some 30 km south of Ramsar on the Caspian coast. Although hunting is not permitted in the protected areas, deer hunters are active beyond their boundaries.

The rutting season – when red deer are more concerned with finding females for mating than with avoiding threats – is a critical period in the life of these animals. Local hunters use crude horn-shaped instruments to imitate the dominant males’ roars to attract them to the guns. In fall of 2016, a group of local hunters joined together to call for a stop to deer hunting during the September–October rutting season. Helped by the Project’s Peyman Moghadas, the hunters developed a number of awareness banners and set them at the entrances of key villages around the deer area. Funded partially by the Future4Leopards Foundation, the banners were visible to all locals passing by and drew strong support from the engaged community to halt the crisis of deer hunting. Currently, the number of red deer living along the entire 900 km belt of Hyrcanian (Caspian) forest in northern Iran is thought to have fallen to just several hundred head.