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Camera trap records confirm the survival of the Leopard ( Panthera pardus L., 1758) in eastern Turkey (Mammalia: Felidae)

Authors:
Ahmet Karataş at Niğde Ömer Halisdemir Üniversitesi
Ahmet Karataş
Şafak Bulut at Hitit University
Şafak Bulut
Burak Akbaba
Burak Akbaba
Burak Akbaba
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Abstract

The Leopard, Panthera pardus, was thought to be extinct or on the verge of extinction in Turkey towards the end of the 20th century. However, as leopards killed by local people were reported from the Turkish-Iraqi border area in the last two decades, we carried out field surveys in these regions in order to find out whether the species has survived. We set camera traps at more than 150 locations in Mardin, Siirt and Şırnak provinces in south-eastern Turkey in 2018 and 2019 and succeeded in obtaining altogether three pictures of leopards, probably of the same individual. The photographs, taken in July and December 2018, and in November 2019, are from two different sites on the northern slopes of Mount Cudi. Together with previous records, these observations indicate that a small population of the leopard has survived in the Turkish-Iraqi border area. Cudi Mountain may serve as a corridor for leopards moving between Turkey, Iraq and Iran. Our records comprise the first photographic evidence of living leopards in Turkey in the wild.
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Zoology in the Middle East
ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/tzme20
Camera trap records confirm the survival of the
Leopard (Panthera pardus L., 1758) in eastern
Turkey (Mammalia: Felidae)
Ahmet Karataş, Şafak Bulut & Burak Akbaba
To cite this article: Ahmet Karataş, Şafak Bulut & Burak Akbaba (2021): Camera trap records
confirm the survival of the Leopard (Panthera�pardus L., 1758) in eastern Turkey (Mammalia:
Felidae), Zoology in the Middle East, DOI: 10.1080/09397140.2021.1924419
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/09397140.2021.1924419
Published online: 05 May 2021.
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Zoology in the Middle East, 2021
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09397140.2021.1924419
*Corresponding author. Email: rousettus@hotmail.com
© 2021 Taylor & Francis
Camera trap records confirm the survival of the Leopard
(Panthera pardus L., 1758) in eastern Turkey (Mammalia: Felidae)
Ahmet Karataşa,*, Şafak Bulutb and Burak Akbabac
aDepartment of Biology, Niğde Ö. H. University, Niğde, Turkey;
bDepartment of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Hitit University, Çorum, Turkey;
cDepartment of Biology, Hacettepe University, Beytepe, Ankara, Turkey
(Received 25 December 2020; accepted 13 April 2021)
The Leopard, Panthera pardus, was thought to be extinct or on the verge of extinction
in Turkey towards the end of the 20th century. However, as leopards killed by local
people were reported from the Turkish-Iraqi border area in the last two decades, we
carried out field surveys in these regions in order to find out whether the species has
survived. We set camera traps at more than 150 locations in Mardin, Siirt and Şırnak
provinces in south-eastern Turkey in 2018 and 2019 and succeeded in obtaining alto-
gether three pictures of leopards, probably of the same individual. The photographs,
taken in July and December 2018, and in November 2019, are from two different sites
on the northern slopes of Mount Cudi. Together with previous records, these observa-
tions indicate that a small population of the leopard has survived in the Turkish-Iraqi
border area. Cudi Mountain may serve as a corridor for leopards moving between Tur-
key, Iraq and Iran. Our records comprise the first photographic evidence of living
leopards in Turkey in the wild.
Keywords: Carnivora; threatened mammals; Anatolia; Şırnak; Mount Cudi; distribu-
tion
Introduction
The Leopard Panthera pardus (Linnaeus, 1758), one of the most charismatic species of
the Turkish fauna, is known to inhabit the territory of present-day Turkey since 6000
BC (Borner 1977; Ullrich & Riffel, 1993). Scientific studies on the species in Turkey
began with the description of a new species Felis tulliana in 1856 by the French zoolo-
gist Achille Valenciennes, who examined a leopard hunted at Mount Nif near İzmir
(Valenciennes, 1856). In the second half of the 20th century, leopard numbers decreased
and individuals that were detected often became subject in local and national newspa-
pers. While the status of the species in Turkey remained unclear towards the end of the
20th century, Kasparek and Kasparek (1990) concluded that this species is most proba-
bly extinct in Turkey and even though some individuals might have survived, they are
unlikely to form a healthy and viable population.
For about three decades, hard evidence for the presence of leopards in Turkey did
not exist. Avgan et al. (2016) reported an individual killed at Mt. Gabar in Şırnak prov-
ince in 2010 and another near Çınar in Diyarbakır province in 2013, together with an
unconfirmed record from Bitlis province in 2001 (see also Toyran, 2018). These records
from south-eastern Turkey, together with other records in northern Iraq (Avgan et al.,
2016) showed that the leopard still existed in the Turkish-Iraqi border area. We carried
Published online 05 May 2021
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