LOBAT ASADI
Lobat Asadi
Lobat Asadi, PhD is an academically and classically trained actor, author and wildlife spokesperson. Lobat is versed in Meisner acting methods, Middle Eastern dance, and a musician. Lobat is also a passionate wildlife spokesperson and Asiatic cheetah expert with speaking engagements, podcasts and interviews including one with National Geographic. She is a children's book author of "Marita the Cheetah" a true story about an orphaned cheetah cub Lobat's father rescued in Iran. The book will be published March 21st, 2023.
In addition to acting, writing books, advising journalists, and working filmmakers such as Bedlam Films and Outstanding Global, about the sociocultural issues related to Asiatic cheetah conservation, Lobat is working on her own documentary film called The Last Cheetah. The documentary is in pre-production phase and will have rare interviews with experts including multiple lifetime award winning wildlife conservationist, Dr. George B. Schaller.
Lobat is also developing a narrative script about her rich experiences with a risk-taking father and their often turbulent, but always living father and daughter relationship.Asiatic cheetah, which are existent only in Iran, need broader, innovative ideas and international support to help save them from extinction.
Using art, film, documentary as well as book and article publications, Lobat is driven to share the message of the Asiatic cheetah – save us before it is too late!
"Cheetahs are in particular crisis because they are extremely endangered animals that fall between the cracks of political, social, economic, on top of enormous reproductive barriers."
Lobat’s interest in saving big cats from extinction was first sparked in 1990s when visiting her father in India. Award winning conservationist, Dr. Hormoz Asadi, was well known and respected by the rich, poor, and most everyone he met in India – save for the poachers. In 1993, Hormoz Asadi made India’s biggest bust of 400 kg of tiger and leopard parts and skins, and was honored by the Indian government, which is documented in the BBC documentary by Mike Birkhead, Tiger Crisis. After a decade of helping India save their big cats, Dr. Asadi decided it was time to focus on the last remaining Asiatic cheetahs, which meant going home to his own country, Iran.
Interestingly, while Lobat Asadi was given the unusual name that means, enchantress of the lions, it was not until 2020, that Lobat became single minded about saving Asiatic cheetahs. “When I found out that there are only 50 or Asiatic cheetahs existing in the wild, I kept asking myself – what would my dad do?” Dr. George Schaller, the first person to study the lions in the African Serengeti in 1967 explains that local village dogs, encroaching highways, habitat loss and international politics are actively working against the cheetah’s survival in Iran. Dr. Schaller is the only Western scholar to have been allowed into Iran over 5 times and has been a mentor to both Lobat and Hormoz Asadi ever since, and you can read about his stance as well as Lobat’s to cheetah conservation in Iran in National Geographic, November 2020 article, How Iran is Killing its Once Thriving Environment.