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A pair of Persian leopards during the mating season in February 2007 in Sarigol National Park (Photo Iranian Cheetah Society).
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The leopard Panthera pardus is a Critically Endangered flagship species of the Caucasus. In 2007, conservation experts and institutions from all six Caucasian
countries joined to develop a Strategy for the Conservation of the Leopard in the Caucasus Ecoregion, based on a review of the status of the leopard population and its prey (Cat News Special...
Citations
... Especially in publications published after 1990, leopard records came from the Eastern Black Sea, Eastern Anatolia, Southeastern, Western Black Sea and Mediterranean Regions (Ullrich & Riffel 1993;Kayaöz 1999;Başkaya 2003;Başkaya & Bilgili 2004;Üstay 2008;De Marinis & Masseti 2009;Başkaya et al. 2011Başkaya et al. , 2012Anadolu Panteri 2017;Anadolu Ajansı 2017;Arpacık 2018;Sarı 2018;Toyran 2018;Sarı et al. 2020). Despite this, there were some who claimed that there is no hard evidence that the leopard was still present in Türkiye (Can 2004;Breitenmoser et al. 2010). Furthermore, Can (2004) claimed that the leopard did not live in the north as well and that the records in Başkaya and Bilgili (2004) could be lynx or something else. ...
In this study, new records of the Anatolian leopard obtained in Türkiye after 2004 were presented. Many field studies were carried out in 37 provinces in Türkiye, from Kars in the far east to Edirne in the west, from Antalya in the south to Kastamonu in the north. Until 2013, footprints of the leopard were primarily used to indicate leopard presence, and in later studies, camera traps and thermal cameras were also used in addition to the footprints. As a result of the study, a total of 84 new records from 54 different localities were obtained from all regions except the Marmara region in Northwestern Türkiye. Most of the records were obtained from Northeastern (NE) Türkiye, where most field studies were carried out. A total of 84 new records are listed as follows; 66 footprints, 4 camera trap photos, 1 camera trap video, 3 thermal camera videos, 2 cell phone videos, 1 cell phone photo, 4 locals seen, 1 full skin, 1 death, and 1 fatal attack.
... Although the Persian leopard has been categorized as an endangered (EN) species in the IUCN Red List (Khorozyan, 2016), more recently the assessment does not appear any longer on the IUCN Red List due to data contradictory and lack of up-to-date information (Stein et al., 2020). The Zagros Mountains forming from the mountain ranges in Iran to the northeast of Iraq (Kurdistan region) has been reported as one of the cross-border habitats of the Persian leopard (Avgan et al., 2016;Breitenmoser et al., 2010), but our knowledge about the Persian leopard habitat suitability and its existing core habitats in the region is so little. ...
Habitat fragmentation has major negative impacts on wildlife populations, and the connectivity could reduce these negative impacts. This study was conducted to assess habitat suitability and structural connectivity of the Persian leopard along the Iran–Iraq border (i.e., the Zagros Mountains) and compare the situation of identified core habitats and connectivity with existing conservation areas (CAs). An ensemble modeling approach resulting from five models was used to predict habitat suitability. To identify core habitats and corridors along the Iran–Iraq border, factorial least-cost path analyses were applied. The results revealed that topographic roughness, distance to CAs, annual precipitation, vegetation/cropland density, and distance to rivers were the most influential variables for predicting the occurrence of the Persian leopard in the study area. By an estimated dispersal distance of 82 km (suggested by previous studies), three core habitats were identified (two cores in Iran and one core in Iraq). The largest cores were located in the south and the center of the study area, which had the highest connectivity priorities. The connectivity from these cores was maintained to the core within the Iraqi side. Only about one-fifth of detected core habitats and relative corridors were protected by CAs in the study area. Detected core habitats and connectivity areas in this study could be an appropriate road map to accomplish the CAs network along the Iran–Iraq border regarding Persian leopard conservation. Establishing transboundary CAs, particularly in the core habitat located in the center of the study area, is strongly recommended to conserve existing large carnivores, including the Persian leopard.
... If conservation measures to restore such a metapopulation were initiated, many other species could potentially benefit due to the leopard's role as umbrella species (Dickman et al. 2015). Such a recovery would very likely depend on source populations in Iran (Breitenmoser et al. 2010, Caucasus Leopard Working Group 2017. In the southern Caucasus, leopards successfully reproduce, and sightings throughout the region, including the northern Greater Caucasus, may indicate that the population is expanding its range (Yarovenko andZazanashvili 2016, Askerov et al. 2018). ...
Large carnivores are currently disappearing from many world regions because of habitat loss, prey depletion, and persecution. Ensuring large carnivore persistence requires safeguarding and sometimes facilitating the expansion of their populations. Understanding which conservation strategies, such as reducing persecution or restoring prey, are most effective to help carnivores to reclaim their former ranges is therefore important. Here, we systematically explored such alternative strategies for the endangered Persian leopard (Panthera pardus saxicolor) in the Caucasus. We combined a rule‐based habitat suitability map and a spatially explicit leopard population model to identify potential leopard subpopulations (i.e., breeding patches), and to test the effect of different levels of persecution reduction and prey restoration on leopard population viability across the entire Caucasus ecoregion and northern Iran (about 737,000 km²). We identified substantial areas of potentially suitable leopard habitat (~120,000 km²), most of which is currently unoccupied. Our model revealed that leopards could potentially recolonize these patches and increase to a population of >1,000 individuals in 100 yr, but only in scenarios of medium to high persecution reduction and prey restoration. Overall, reducing persecution had a more pronounced effect on leopard metapopulation viability than prey restoration: Without conservation strategies to reduce persecution, leopards went extinct from the Caucasus in all scenarios tested. Our study highlights the importance of persecution reduction in small populations, which should hence be prioritized when resources for conservation are limited. We show how individual‐based, spatially explicit metapopulation models can help in quantifying the recolonization potential of large carnivores in unoccupied habitat, designing adequate conservation strategies to foster such recolonizations, and anticipating the long‐term prospects of carnivore populations under alternative scenarios. Our study also outlines how data scarcity, which is typical for threatened range‐expanding species, can be overcome with a rule‐based habitat map. For Persian leopards, our projections clearly suggest that there is a large potential for a viable metapopulation in the Caucasus, but only if major conservation actions are taken towards reducing persecution and restoring prey.
... Researchers have identified some specific feature for the leopard Panthera pardus. Nowell and Jackson (1996) stated that the leopard Panthera pardus is a generalist; Breitenmoser et al. (2010) expressed it a top predator, Nowell and Jackson (1996) considered it the species with the most widespread distribution of Felidae family. ...
... Awareness of the most important predictors in the preferred habitats is important for developing some conservation strategies and improving viability on umbrella/flagship species such as leopards (Erfanian et al., 2013). They are the most important representative for conservation of mammals (Breitenmoser et al., 2010) and their population is associated with biodiversity and will help along identifying biodiversity hotspots (Gavashelishvili and Lukarevsky, 2008). Gisakan area as an only-Persian leopard habitat in Boushehr province is not a protected area yet. ...
... Today, Iran hosts the majority of Persian leopards (a likely optimistic estimate was 550-850 individuals for Iran, with a global population of 800-1,000) Sanei et al. 2016 (Askerov et al. 2018;Yarovenko and Zazanashvili 2016). A potential recovery of leopards in the Caucasus is strongly dependent on the Iranian source population (Breitenmoser et al. 2010). Nevertheless, without urgent management, this population itself is likely to decline and become functionally disconnected from the Caucasus . ...
... If conservation measures to restore such a metapopulation were initiated, many other species could potentially benefit (e.g., through expanding protected areas, or attracting conservation funding). Such a recovery would very likely depend on source populations in Iran (Breitenmoser et al. 2010; ...
Weltweit sind viele Populationen großer Raubtiere bedroht. Die Suche nach Wegen zur Erhaltung und Wiederherstellung von Populationen großer Raubtiere ist daher ein zentrales Naturschutzziel. In einigen Regionen erholen sich die Populationen jedoch auch, was der Wissenschaft eine hervorragende Möglichkeit bietet potentielle Wege zum Schutz von Raubtieren zu identifizieren. Das Ziel dieser Arbeit war es, die Voraussetzungen, die eine Erholung von Raubtierpopulationen begünstigen, besser zu verstehen. Am Beispiel der sich erholenden Population des Persischen Leoparden im Kaukasus beantwortet diese Arbeit die folgenden Forschungsfragen: (1) Bietet die Ökoregion des Kaukasus einen geeigneten, sicheren und zusammenhängenden Lebensraum für Persische Leoparden und ihre Beutetiere? (2) Was sind wirksame Schutzstrategien, die eine Erholung der Population des Persischen Leoparden im Kaukasus begünstigen? Die Ergebnisse dieser Arbeit lassen den Schluss zu, dass für Leoparden und ihre Beutetiere im Kaukasus großflächig geeigneter Lebensraum vorhanden ist. Trotz dieser günstigen Ausgangsposition für den Artenschutz zeigt diese Arbeit jedoch auch klar auf, dass Schutzmaßnahmen erforderlich sind, um direkte Bedrohungen abzumildern. Als wichtigsten Faktor für eine Erholung der Leopardenpopulation identifiziert diese Arbeit das Verhindern von Tötungen. Diese Arbeit verdeutlicht somit die wichtige Rolle von Konfliktminderung zwischen Menschen und Raubtieren, um die daraus resultierende Tötung von Raubtieren zu verhindern. Darüber hinaus unterstreicht diese Dissertation die Notwendigkeit der Vernetzung sicherer Lebensräume und den Wert von internationaler Zusammenarbeit zur Förderung der Genesung von Populationen großer Raubtiere. Zusammengefasst liefert diese Arbeit Einblicke in Bedingungen, die die Genesung von Großraubtieren fördern, und umreißt mögliche zukünftige Wege eines vom Aussterben bedrohten Raubtiers in einem globalen Biodiversitäts-Hotspot.
... Overall, wild sheep and bezoar goat living in alpine habitats are particularly vulnerable to various pressures and their predicted declines can intensify livestock depredation by leopard and conflicts with humans (Forrest et al. 2012). Human-leopard conflicts over depredation are widespread and increasing in Iran due to deficiency of natural prey (Breitenmoser et al. 2010;Farhadinia et al. 2007Farhadinia et al. , 2014Khorozyan et al. 2015Khorozyan et al. , 2017. Thus, in agreement with previous studies (e.g., Forrest et al. 2012), the cascading impacts of climate change will place leopards at a greater risk than expected from habitat reduction alone. ...
Land use changes in suitable areas, habitat loss, and fragmentation are likely to be the most important consequences of climate change for wildlife populations. Yet, little is known about the response of large carnivores to climate change, globally and regionally. In this study, we utilized the ensemble modeling based on six species distribution models in order to predict the spatial vulnerability of the globally endangered Persian leopard (Panthera pardus saxicolor) to climate change in Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari Province, a semi-arid region in Iran. We showed that about 12.12 to 22.38% of leopard habitats in the area may be lost by 2050 due to climate change under four representative concentration pathways (RCPs) within the framework of two general circulation models (GCMs). In contrast, 1.87 to 13.01% of currently unsuitable habitats can become suitable with climate change. Overall, a considerable portion of the leopard range will remain intact under global warming, but still habitat loss to climate change will vary from 5.89 to 14.59%. Thus, large-scale but locally focused and flexible conservation strategies should be applied in intact and sensitive areas so that to prevent the intensification of anthropogenic threats such as overgrazing and forest degradation from collection of firewood, charcoal, and medicinal plants under changing climate.
... Currently, only scattered and small num�ers persist in most of the range countries (Askerov et al. 2015), with the exception of Iran which hosts >75% of the su�species extant range (Jaco�son et al. 2016). It is possi�le that the populations out� side Iran function as peripheral sinks for the larger Iranian pool (Breitenmoser et al. 2010). While the spatial ecology of leopards has �een intensively investigated, research ef� forts have not �een evenly distri�uted across su�species and geographic regions. ...
Comparatively little is known about the socio-spatial organisation of leopards Panthera pardus, and how it affects their probability of population persistence in west and central Asia where the species has lost around 84% of its former range. Remote habitat and cryptic nature make the leopards inherently difficult to study while sufficient information is crucial on which to base effective conservation. Here, we report preliminary findings from the first comprehensive telemetry study on Persian leopard Panthera pardus saxicolor in north-eastern Iran, near the Turkmenistan border. Between September 2014 and August 2016, we captured six adult leopards (5 males and 1 female) and fitted them with GPS-satellite Iridium collars to provide information on basic ecology of the Persian leopard. We calculated MCP 100% home ranges of 62.9 to 1,098.3 km2. With the exception of a young, possibly dispersing male, leopards had smaller ranges than that of the only other Persion leopard collared prior to this study. Two leopards crossed international borders and wandered into Turkmenistan, revealing that two countries may share connected leopard population across
the Kopet Dag region.
... Large potential leopard habitats in the north-western Zagros range in northern Iraq and south-eastern Turkey however have not been surveyed so far. The species has been reported from the region until 1970s (Borner, 1977) but not much afterwards, although it was hypothesised that a population may still persist (van Maanen, Goudzwaard, van Uchelen, Güray, & Wolterman, 2009;Breitenmoser et al., 2010), because of its proximity to Iran and the presence of continuous suitable habitats along the Zagros Mountain range in Iraq and Turkey. However, due to armed conflicts since the 1980s, only limited surveys were possible and although some observations, skins and pugmarks Downloaded by [Batur Avgan] at 07:36 05 May 2016 have been reported (compilation in Breitenmoser, Breitenmoser-Würsten, Mörschel, Zazanashvili, & Sylvén, 2007), those records were not considered as hard-facts for leopard presence as important details (i.e. ...
... However, due to armed conflicts since the 1980s, only limited surveys were possible and although some observations, skins and pugmarks Downloaded by [Batur Avgan] at 07:36 05 May 2016 have been reported (compilation in Breitenmoser, Breitenmoser-Würsten, Mörschel, Zazanashvili, & Sylvén, 2007), those records were not considered as hard-facts for leopard presence as important details (i.e. year or location of the killing) remained uncertain (Breitenmoser et al., 2010). The most recent and the only solid proof of evidence for decades was a male leopard photographed in 2011 and 2012 by Raza et al. (2012) at Qara Dagh, Sulaymaniyah-Iraq (Figure 1), only 50 km from Iran but considerably far (approximately 400 km) from south-eastern Turkey and the bordering areas of northern Iraq. ...
The status of leopard in Iraq and south-eastern Turkey has been unclear for decades. Because of recent and on-going armed conflicts in important parts of the potential leopard distribution range, no studies were done that could have proved the presence of the species. We report here 10 confirmed and 2 unconfirmed leopard records between 2001 and 2014 from northern Iraq and south-eastern Turkey. All records for which the gender of the animal was identified were of males, which could be hypothesized as long-range dispersers from Iran. However, the long distances between our records and the nearest known breeding populations in Iran suggests that a so far unnoticed reproducing population nuclei may occur along the north-western part of the Zagros Mountains in western Iran, northern Iraq and south-eastern Turkey.
... The Persian Leopard P. p. saxicolor is one of the least-studied subspecies of leopards and occurs in Iran, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan and the broader Caucasus (Breitenmoser et al., 2010). Iran hosts the largest population of the Persian Leopard (Lukarevsky et al., 2007); however most of these are now confined to reserves located throughout the country. ...
We carried out a dietary analysis of Persian Leopards, Panthera pardus saxicolor, in a temperate region in north-eastern Iran, where the largest population nucleus exists across the subspecies range. We investigated 113 faecal samples collected between February 2009 and March 2010 in Golestan National Park. Faecal analysis revealed that leopards predominantly preyed upon wild ungulates, with the Wild Boar, Sus scrofa, being the most important prey species in terms of frequency and biomass. Eleven different prey items were identified, 7 of which were ungulates, comprising 99% of the total food items. We also found a spatial pattern in the prey composition of leopards: cervids were predominantly found in forest landscapes, whereas Wild Sheep, Ovis orientalis, was mainly found in steppe habitats, revealing the leopards’ predation on medium- to large-sized ungulates. Livestock remains were mainly ex- tracted from steppe samples, but the overall contribution to the leopard diet pattern (approximately 8.5% of consumed biomass) suggested that conflict with human communities, at least within the investigated core parts of the National Park, is not a major concern. The study provides the first illustration of the Persian Leopard's die- tary composition in a temperate area with a relatively high diversity of available prey, and can be a baseline for future investigation and human-leopard interaction monitoring.
... As the only extant big cat within Eurasia, the Persian or Caucasian leopard Panthera pardus saxicolor, is a flagship species distributed in the remote mountains and rugged foothills of Iran, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Iraq and the broader Caucasus Gavashelishvili and Lukarevskiy, 2008). Despite its importance, this endangered subspecies has remained in a precarious situation, at low density and within a shrinking range since the mid-20th century (Heptner and Sludskij, 1972;Bragin, 1990;Khorozyan, 2003;Başkaya and Bilgili, 2004;Breitenmoser et al., 2007Breitenmoser et al., , 2010; Gavashelishvili and Lukarevskiy, 2008). ...
... e l s e v i e r . c o m / l o c a t e / b i o c population (Khorozyan and Abramov, 2007;Lukarevsky et al., 2007;Breitenmoser et al., 2010). Against this background, the reality is that little is known of the Persian leopards and their status in northwestern Iran, nor of the threats they face . ...
... Others have emphasized the importance to leopards within the Lesser Caucasus of dispersal from northern Iran (Khorozyan and Abramov, 2007;Breitenmoser et al., 2010). What is new in our model is the conclusion that even Iran's boundary population is unlikely to remain viable without the critical connection with Alborz, through the Talysh Mountains within the extreme southeast of Azerbaijan (Zimmermann et al., 2007) where leopards are confirmed to exist (Askerov et al., 2015). ...
