Iranian wildlife authorities are continuing of a round-the-clock search for a missing brown bear cub that escaped from a wildlife clinic in Tehran’s Pardisan Park last week, officials said on Sunday.
Gholamreza Ebdali, director general of the Wildlife Conservation Office at Iran’s Department of Environment, said the three-month-old cub has been spotted at multiple locations within the 225-hectare park, but has not yet been captured.
“We are certain the cub is alive. We’ve seen tracks in three or four places inside the park,” Ebdalitold IRNA, Iran’s state news agency, ruling out speculation he had been stolen.
“But because it is small and the park is full of trees and undergrowth, it can easily hide.”
The bear cub, weighing around three kilograms, went missing in the early hours of Thursday, May 29, after reportedly escaping during a routine procedure involving other rescued animals recently brought to the park’s clinic.
Thermal night vision cameras and live traps have been deployed in the search, but the presence of other animals, such as stray cats, has complicated efforts. “Despite the use of night vision and heat-sensing cameras, we haven’t had success yet,” he said.
Authorities believe the cub is surviving by feeding on seasonal fruits in the park, such as mulberries and apricots. “It’s no longer dependent on milk and can feed on available fruits, so we are not worried about its nutrition,” Ebdali added.
The missing bear is one of two cubs found last month in the southern province of Fars. Their mother had been killed by a poacher and her body was discovered in the Abraj region of Marvdasht.
The orphaned cubs were transferred to the Pardisan wildlife clinic late in May for rehabilitation and eventual release back into the wild.
Following the escape, park access was temporarily restricted during early search operations, but has since reopened to the public.
Environmental officials say the search will continue until the cub is safely recovered.
Truckers across at least 150 cities are protesting high fuel costs, stagnant freight rates, and inadequate insurance coverage.
Truck drivers currently pay a subsidized rate of 3,000 rials per liter for diesel—equivalent to about 1.5 cents per gallon—based on GPS-tracked mileage and approved cargo waybills.
However, starting 21 June, a new three-tier pricing system will increase fuel costs for usage beyond allotted quotas, with prices soaring to as high as 250,000 rials per liter at market rates.
While officials say the changes are intended to combat fuel smuggling, drivers argue that the quotas fail to reflect actual freight demands and warn that the higher costs could threaten their livelihoods.
Video footage from across the country shows major highways emptied of heavy traffic, underscoring the breadth of the disruption. With 552,307 registered drivers and only a small fraction working under corporate fleets, efforts to suppress the strike are confronting structural limits.
According to official data, just 29,648 of Iran’s 433,388 active trucks are owned by transport companies—less than 7 percent. In contrast, private ownership remains dominant, a legacy that has proven resistant to change even after a similar strike in 2018 prompted state efforts to build up firm-controlled fleets.
A dispersed workforce with a central role
This dispersed nature has made the current strike harder to contain. The government has registered over 700 new transport firms since 2017, doubling corporate truck ownership in six years. Yet this growth has not shifted the balance of control: the private sector still owns the overwhelming majority of the country’s heavy freight fleet.
Strikes in high-traffic provinces have compounded the impact. Tehran alone sees more than 3.8 million truck trips annually, roughly 10 percent of the national total. Isfahan follows closely, alongside key industrial and transit hubs such as Fars, Khuzestan, and Khorasan Razavi.
Despite reported arrests and interrogations in multiple provinces, the strike shows no signs of resolution. The Islamic Republic’s response—focused on intimidation and attempts at corporate centralization—has not brought drivers back to work.
The strike has laid bare a logistical and political reality: the road freight sector, so vital to the Iranian economy, remains fundamentally outside the state’s immediate command.
