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CATnews 69 Spring 2019
14
MARK V. PESTOV1, ZHASKAIRAT E. NURMUKHAMBETOV2, AKTAN T. MUKHASHOV2, VLADI-
MIR A. TERENTYEV AND TATJANA ROSEN4
First camera trap record of Per-
sian leopard in Ustyurt State
Nature Reserve, Kazakhstan
In Autumn 2018, a live Persian leopard Panthera pardus saxicolor was record-
ed for the first time on a camera trap on the territory of the Ustyurt State Nature
Reserve USNR (Mangystau Region, Kazakhstan). This is the fourth confirmed case of
the appearance of a leopard in Kazakhstan, with three occasions in the Mangystau
region and one occasion in Zhambyl region. Likely leopards come to Kazakhstan
from neighbouring Turkmenistan. The article contains recommendations on further
studies to identify whether other individuals are present in the area, the introduc-
tion of the leopard into the Red Book of Kazakhstan and on the expansion of the
territory of the Ustyurt State Nature Reserve and its protection zone in order to pre-
serve the entire desert ecosystem, including the Persian leopard.
Fig. 1. Illegally trapped and killed Per-
sian leopard in the Karakiyan province,
Mangystau region in May 2015, 90 km
from the place where Persian leopard was
captured in the reserve, source: https://
tengrinews.kz/events/stali-izvestnyi-po-
drobnosti-ubiystva-leoparda-mangistaus-
koy-274733/
1 Institute of Genetics and Biotechnology, Faculty
of Biology, University of Warsaw, Pawińskiego
5a, 02-106 Warszawa, Poland
*<robert.myslajek@igib.uw.edu.pl>
2 Faculty of Animal Science, Warsaw University of
Life Sciences – SGGW, Ciszewskiego 8, 02-786
Warszawa, Poland
3 Mammal Research Institute Polish Academy of
Sciences, Stoczek 1, 17-230 Białowieża, Poland
4 Forest Research Institute, Sękocin Stary, Braci
Leśnej 3, 05-090 Raszyn, Poland
5 Association for Nature „Wolf”, Twardorzeczka,
Cynkowa 4, 34-324 Lipowa, Poland
rate for Environmental Protection, War-
saw. http://natura2000.gdos.gov.pl (Access
21.02.2019)
Wizimirski J. 2007. Martwy ryś w Lasach
Spalskich. NaszTomaszów.pl Codzienna Gaze-
ta Internetowa. https://www.nasztomaszow.
pl/wiadomosci/27261,martwy-rys-w-lasach-
spalskich (Accessed 21.02.2019).
Żuczkowski M. & Żuczkowski M. 2012. Na tropie
rysia. Karkonosze 3, 20–22.
Supporting Online Material SOM Table T1 and
Figure F1 are available at www.catsg.org.
Fig. 2. Eurasian lynx with killed roe deer
in Kampinos National Park (central Poland;
Photo T. Diserens).
The Persian leopard was assessed as Endan-
gered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened
Species in 2008 (Khorozyan et al. 2006, 2008),
given an estimated 800–1,000 individuals
remaining. Persian leopards were once dis-
tributed across the whole Caucasus region,
the Iranian and Anatolian Plateaus and the
southern parts of Central Asia. A rapid decline
of leopard range and numbers occurred due
to hunting, persecution, trapping, poisoning,
habitat destruction and loss of prey in the 18th
and 19th centuries. By the mid-20th century
leopards had disappeared from large parts
of their range, which historically included
Russia, Turkey, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan,
Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Afghanistan, Uzbe-
kistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and western
Pakistan (Khorozyan et al. 2008).
According to experts, until the end of the
20th century, the leopard had never been
observed in Kazakhstan (Heptner & Sludsky
1972, Sludsky et al. 1982). Only in the last
two decades, three reliable facts of illegal
killing of this species became known: the
first incident occurred in 2000 in Zhambyl re-
gion (Shakula 2004); and two more leopards
were killed in Mangystau region in 2007 and
2015 (Plakhov et al. 2016; Fig. 1).
Despite these observations, the Persian le-
opard has never been considered an extant
species in Kazakhstan and therefore is not
protected under the Red Book of Kazakhstan.
In autumn 2018, during the implementation
of the project on supplemental feeding of
vultures in the Ustyurt State Nature Reserve
(supported by Rufford Small Grants Founda-
tion; Pestov et al. 2017), camera traps for the
first time registered the presence of a Per-
sian leopard in Kazakhstan.
Study Area
USNR was established in 1984 in Kazakh-
stan. Its objective is the conservation of the
unique natural and archaeological features,
flora and fauna of a unique desert ecosys-
tem. The reserve is located in the Karakiya
province of the Mangystau region in Ka-
zakhstan. USNR encompasses 2,233.42 km2.
The reserve includes the southern part of the
Western chink of the Ustyurt, a narrow strip
of the plateau adjacent to it, the eastern part
of the Karyn-Zharyk Kenderli-sor depression
and fragments of the sandy massif Karyn-
Zharyk, as well as the Karamaya mountain.
Climatically, the region where the reserve is
located belongs to the continental south Tu-
ran desert zone (Plakhov 2006).
In addition to the Persian leopard, the re-
serve is home to several mammal species,
including Urial sheep Ovis orientalis vignei,
goitered gazelle Gazella subgutturosa, wolf
Canis lupus, fox Vulpes vulpes, Asiatic wild-
original contribution
CATnews 69 Spring 2019
15
cat Felis lybica and caracal Caracal caracal.
In the course of inventory of ungulates in the
reserve conducted in autumn 2018, 548 urials
and 360 goitered gazelles were counted. The
tolai hare Lepus tolai, the yellow squirrel
Spermophilus fulvus and the chukar partridge
Alectoris chukar are also common. Finally,
according to older literature (Plahov 2006),
the sand cat Felis margarita and Pallas’s cat
Otocolobus manul, are also considered to be
present but have not been recorded since the
establishment of USNR.
Methods
Between April and December 2018, reserve
personal have monitored vultures by means
of camera traps at three sites baited with
slaughterhouse by-products. Each site was
equipped with two camera traps installed at
a distance of 3 to 4 m from each other.
Results
In the evening of 29 September 2018, for
close to 120 seconds, from 22:57 h to 22:59 h,
the Persian leopard was captured for the first
time by a camera trap while arriving at the
bait site, sniffing and then leaving. This ca-
mera trap site was located on the rocky edge
of the cliff of the Ustyurt Plateau (Fig. 2) and
stands at 175 m.
On 11 November 2018, at 6:57 over 60 sec-
onds, two camera traps recorded again a leo-
pard at the same location (Fig. 3). We believe
this is the same animal but the poor quality of
the photographs taken in September unfortu-
nately does not definitely confirm so.
For the third time, the same Persian leopard
was recorded (Fig. 4) on the second camera
trap site on 7 December 2018, in the daytime
for 5 minutes (from 16 hours 27 minutes to 16
hours 31 minutes). This site is also located on
the stony edge of the cliff of the Ustyurt pla-
teau. The leopard sniffed the remaining ca-
mel bones and one of the camera traps, and
then laid down next to the bones for about
60 seconds. The leopard approached this site
from the previous one. The distance between
them is about 18.6 km in a straight line.
The vegetation at both locations where
the leopard was recorded is typical for the
Ustyurt Plateau and includes the following
plants: Anabasis eriopoda, A. brachiata, Na-
nophyton erinaceum, Atraphaxis replicata;
Convolvulus fruticosus; Limonium suffruti-
cosum, Zygophyllum ovigerum, Reaumuria
fruticosa and Artemisia kemrudica.
Discussion
As of this writing, the Persian leopard has
been recorded on the territory of Kazakhstan
on four occasions, in three instances in the
Mangystau region (Fig. 5). In addition, dur-
ing social surveys in the region, we obtained
anecdotal reports of several leopard encoun-
ters over the past two decades. However,
this information cannot be verified.
Leopards are likely to periodically migrate
from neighbouring Turkmenistan, where
80–100 of them are still found (Geptner &
Sludsky 1972, Lukarevsky 2001, Red Book of
Turkmenistan 2011, K. Khojamuradov, pers.
comm. 2018). The distance from the Ustyurt
reserve to the western Kopetdag in southern
Turkmenistan, where the leopard lives at pre-
sent, is at least 600 km. Tracks and remains
of dead leopards were found in the Bolshoi
Balkan range in 2017 (K. Khojamuradov and
A. Potaeva, pers. comm.). The distance from
USNR to the Bolshoi Balkhan range is about
370 km. In 1989, some leopard tracks were
also spotted in the Kulansai gorge at the
Kara-Bogaz-Gol bay in north-western Turk-
menistan (Lukarevsky 2001). This site is ap-
proximately 170 km south of the observation
in USNR.
first camera trap record of Persian leopard in Ustyurt SR
Fig. 2. Habitat of the Persian leopard in the Ustyurt State Nature Reserve (Photo by M. Pestov).
Fig. 4. Camera trap photo of the Persian leopard, set up by the
authors on the second bait site in the Ustyurt State Nature Re-
serve on 7 December 2018 (Photo USNR/Pestov/Terentyev).
Fig. 3. Camera trap photo of the Persian leopard set up by the
authors on the first bait site on the territory of the Usyurt State Na-
ture Reserve on 6 November 2018 (Photo USNR/Pestov/Terentyev).
CATnews 69 Spring 2019
16
Three camera trap records over a period of
70 days in the USNR allow us to hope that
the leopard will remain in the area. Habitat
conditions are close to optimal: this area has
little human disturbance, its relief provides
good cover and within a radius of several ki-
lometers, there are springs with reed beds.
The appearance of the leopard in Mangystau
provides additional arguments in favour for
adopting measures to preserve all the biolo-
gical and landscape diversity of the Ustyurt
Plateau. When USNR was established, the
scientists’ opinion was not fully taken into
consideration and because of this, only the
Western chink of the Ustyurt Plateau and
Kenderli-sor were set aside as protected. At
present, proposals for the expansion of the
reserve as well as for its nomination as a
UNESCO World Heritage Site were not taken
into account despite experts’ justification
(Pestov & Dieterich 2015). The reason for this
is a conflict of interest with plans to develop
the territory of the southern Ustyurt near the
reserve’s borders in order to explore and ex-
ploit the Kansu and Samtyr gas fields.
We propose to increase the buffer zone of
the reserve up to 10 km and to establish a
new protected area in the South Ustyurt,
including the Kaplankyr chink, near the bor-
der of Kazakhstan with Turkmenistan and
Uzbekistan. These measures could be part of
a compromise, given that significant part of
the southern Ustyurt is planned for explora-
tion and production of hydrocarbons. Rele-
vant proposals were submitted to the Com-
mittee of Forestry and Fauna of the Ministry
of Agriculture of the Republic of Kazakhstan.
The leopard currently is not listed in the Red
Book of the Republic of Kazakhstan (2010).
At present, with the support of the Central
Asian Desert Initiative CADI project, we have
already developed a biological justification
for including the Persian leopard in the Red
Book of Kazakhstan. This document will be
submitted to the Government of Kazakhstan
in the near future. In addition, experts are
currently discussing the preparation of an
Action Plan on the Persian leopard in Kazak-
hstan. In this context we also call for further
research in Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan to
investigate whether there are more leopards
in Kazakhstan; and what routes they migrate
between the two countries.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank Aleksei Laktionov
(Astrakhan State University, Astrakhan, Russian
Federation) for the information on the vegetation;
the Rufford Foundation for supporting the reali-
zation of the project on vultures feeding, which
allowed the discovery of the Persian leopard in
the USNR.
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1 Organization for the conservation of amphibians
and reptiles of the eco-center “Dront” Russian
Federation, Nyzhny Novgorod 603001, Rozhdest-
venskaya, 16 d
<vipera@dront.ru>
2 Ustyurt Nature Reserve, Kazakhstan, Mangystau
Region, Zhanaozhen 130200, Sportivnaya 7
<zhaskairat-84@mail.ru>
<m.aktan@mail.ru>
3 Association for the Conservation of Biodiversity
of Kazakhstan (ACBK) Kazakhstan, Nur-Sultan,
010000, Beibitshylyk street, 18, room #406
<vladi14_2000@yahoo.co.uk>
4 Ilbirs Foundation, Bishkek, 720001, Kyrgyzstan,
52/60 Turusbekov Str.
*<tanya@iisd.org>
Pestov et al.
Fig. 5. Range of the Persian leopard in Kazakhstan and neighbouring Turkmenistan
(according to Heptner & Sludsky 1972 and Khojamuradov, pers. comm.).
