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Horeni, N.; Faruq, B.; Raza, H.
The first record of a female Persian leopard from the Kurdistan Region of Iraq
2022  Cat News (76): 24-28

The Persian leopard _Panthera pardus tulliana_ in the Zagros Mts. is a highly threatened, top predator where small and fragmented populations of it still persist in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq KRI. Since its rediscovery in 2011, approximately ten live individuals have been documented in the country via opportunistic camera trapping and direct observations. Prior to this record, there were two cases of female presence in the country, one killed and the other was a video of two leopards walking along a trail, unverified if it is of a mating pair or a mother and a fully grown cub. For those cases where identification was possible, only male individuals have been sighted. Here, we report the first living female Persian leopard filmed on camera traps from Bamo Mountain of Iraqi Kurdistan. We used seven camera-trap sessions across one camera-trap station during 99 camera-days over an area of 40 km2. The female Persian leopard was captured on three camera traps on 23 February 22. This discovery is the first physical evidence of the presence of a female Persian leopard in Iraq, bringing us one step closer to the possibility of Persian leopard breeding in the country. We request urgent conservation measures to improve the status of Persian leopards in Iraq and the KRI and the establishment of Bamo Mountain as a transboundary protected area to ensure the viability of the Persian leopard population along the northern Zagros Mountains.

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