IUCN / SSC Cat Specialist Group - Digital Cat Library |
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| Zafar-ul Islam, M.; Boug, A.; As-Shehri, A.; Al Jaid, M. | |
| Poisoning of endangered Arabian leopard in Saudi Arabia and its conservation efforts | |
| 2014 Cat News (60): 16-17 | |
Many killings of leopards can be attributed to livestock protection. When catching goats, sheep, young camels or other domestic animals, leopards interfere with human activities and are seen as straight competitors. With the decrease of natural prey species, they have to more and more shift their diet to livestock, which increases their unpopularity. In most cases, they are also considered as a threat for human. As a result, leopard is hunted across its range, with different methods (trapping, poisoning, shooting). Poisoning using anticoagulant rat killer was common in the eighties, which was stopped in 1985 unlike trapping. A total of only five known incidences of poisoning of Arabian leopards Panthera pardus nimr have been recorded in Saudi Arabia between 1965 and 2014. Shepherds poisoned the carcasses of sheep, goats, camel thought to have been killed by a predator such as Arabian wolf Canis lupus arabs, striped hyena Hyaena hyaena or stray dogs and unfortunately, the predator in these instances was the elusive Arabian leopard. |
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