But even in its namesake country, Persian leopards are threatened. Expanding villages, encroaching livestock and busy highways destroy habitat and create hazards for such a wide-ranging predator.
In recent years, a new indirect threat has emerged as well: economic sanctions. He spent part of his childhood in Iran, and has fond memories of its mountains, desert and beautiful Caspian forests.
The number of people in Iran had skyrocketed, more than doubling in less than 30 years. More people has meant more mouths to feed and more human contact with previously elusive wildlife. Although Iran has an impressive number of parks and protected areas, herders sometimes graze their livestock in prohibited zones. When leopards occasionally kill vulnerable cows or sheep, the herders poison the carcasses to get rid of the offending predator.
And local hunters illegally kill the leopards' prey — deer, Persian gazelle, Urial sheep and wild goat — to feed their families or to earn an income. In , researchers installed camera traps throughout Golestan National Park — prime habitat for leopards — to count the number of cats still living there. They estimated that only about 27 remained and confirmed fears that prey species were severely depleted.
Numbers in nearby protected areas were even worse. A study found only five leopards in the two adjacent protected areas of Ghorkhod and Bekawdeh.
Nationwide, of 71 dead leopards documented between and , 50 were killed by intentional poisoning or hunting and 13 were hit by cars. With so many conflicts and so little money, park staff are overwhelmed.
And there are severe budgetary constraints. Iran needs more and better trained wardens. That's where international sanctions come in. Decades of economic isolation have crippled Iran's economy and left many conservation needs unaddressed. But the mechanics of actually transferring funds remain almost impossible, according to Tahbaz.
Few Iranian banks are authorised to receive them, and foreign banks remain skittish about dealing with Iran. A large geographic range equates to low overall population size, regrettably. There are an estimated 1, Persian leopards left in the wild in increasingly small and fragmented populations. Moreover, an ever-increasing human presence has become a major source of concern. In southwest Asia, where its numbers were widespread, hunting, habitat destruction, and lack of prey have driven them to near extinction.
Fur trade in Afghanistan, coupled with ongoing civil unrest, exacerbated the plight of these cats. The growing number of livestock in Iran has forced locals to shoot or poison leopards. Spreading or thinning out their population size further could see the numbers of Persian leopards fall below a sustainable threshold.
Without targeted conservation efforts, the leopard faces a very real threat of extinction in the wild. Despite Iranian, Armenian, and Georgian efforts to develop strategies such as biological data research, enlargement of existing protected areas, and maintenance of habitat corridors, much more work is needed to raise public awareness, and to educate local communities on the plight of the leopard.
As of , leopards are kept in captivity to increase their numbers, while Turkmenistan has made efforts to reintroduce pairs of male and female leopards into the wild, hoping that their cubs will learn survival skills and thrive in these protected areas. After disappearance of Asiatic lion and Caspian tiger, the Persian leopard is the largest cat in western Asia, however it faces a high threat of extinction itself. Persian leopards face a variety of dangers, even inside protected reserves.
Housing developments, livestock farming, hunting and trapping all threaten their very existence. Persian leopards range widely range across multiple protected areas, often crossing international borders, making conservation work a particular challenge.
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