IUCN / SSC Cat Specialist Group - Digital Cat Library |
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| Johnson, K. | |
| Species at risk - Status and distribution of the leopard (_Panthera pardus_) in Turkey and the Caucasus mountains | |
| 2003 Endangered Species UPDATE (20 ): 107-122 | |
For millennia large mammalian carnivores, including the Caspian tiger (Panthera tigris virgata), Asiatic lion (Panthera leo persica), brown bear (Ursus arctos), gray wolf (Canis lupus), striped hyena (Hyaena hyaena), Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) and three subspecies of leopard (Panthera pardus tulliana, P.p. saxicolor and P.p. ciscaucasica) roamed mountains, plateaus and grasslands of Turkey, historically known as Asia Minor or Anatolia. Of the big cats, only the leopard and Eurasian lynx remain in increasingly isolated mountainous habitats. Evidence suggests a few leopards remain in Turkey's Black Sea mountain ranges and the inaccessible peaks of the Taurus Mountains in the south. Also, despite centuries of persecution, the leopard still exists in the Greater and Lesser Caucasus Ranges of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, receiving some juvenile immigration from a larger population in northern Iran's Zagros Mountains. Leopard conservation throughout the Caucasus countries and Turkey will only succeed if viable populations of ungulate prey such as the Bezoar goat (Capra aegagrus), and wild boar (Sus scrofa) can be sustained in protected and unprotected habitats, and people in the region are educated about the importance of these species to the sustainability of the ecosystem. |
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