Persian leopards find refuge in land mines

Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online
A stretch of wilderness that’s been laced with land mines is typically considered off-limits. But according to a report in National Geographic, leopards living in Iran and Iraq are using these left-over buried explosives to their advantage.
And it’s easy to see why. Land mines hurt people; poachers are people (some would argue); and poachers don’t want to be hurt. And seeing as Iranian and Iraqi forces laid as many as 30 million land mines during their conflict in the ’80s, there’s a lot of potential for something to go terribly wrong–if you step in the right place. (Go leopards!!!)
Now, however, Persian leopards face a new threat, as development in the Kurdistan region of Iraq has piqued interest in cleaning out the remaining land mines and using the same highlands that have become a refuge for leopards for oil and gas development, Nat Geo’s Peter Schwartzstein explained.
“Conservation efforts have struggled to gain traction in large swaths of the Middle East,” said Schwartzstein. “As in many developing regions, the welfare of the environment is a distant consideration amid economic peril and political flux.”
“But the emergence of the Islamic State jihadist group… has pushed the plight of the Persian leopard even further from local decision-makers’ thoughts,” he added. “That’s why the region’s conservationists now find themselves in the not-so-comfortable position of opposing some land-mine clearance efforts. Clearing the way for people to return to those areas could put the leopards back at humans’ mercy, they say.”
Back in February, Scientific American reported that seven Persian leopards, which are officially considered an endangered subspecies and featured on the Red List of the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN), had been killed or injured by poachers, food poisoning or automotive incidents in a span of just 40 days. Prior to that, research had indicated that 71 were poisoned or illegally killed for their pelts between 2007 and 2011.
The minefields offer protection from hunters, but the leopards can fall victim to the explosive devices themselves, Schwartzstein said. Their dexterity and the fact that they are light enough to not trigger anti-tank mines, which are typically activated by payloads of over 176 pounds, can help them. However, at least two are believed to have been killed by antipersonnel mines.
“It might seem extraordinary that deadly devices have contributed to the Persian leopard’s continued presence in the Zagros Mountains, but the prospects of the region’s animal life have always been intimately wrapped up with the fortunes of the local people,” he added.
Experts have struggled to determine exactly how many of the big cats still live in the region. The IUCN estimates place the figure in the vicinity of one thousand, according to Schwartzstein, with most of them living in Iran. The Persian Leopard Project and conservationist group Panthera place the population between 500 and 800, though there are fears that those numbers may dwindle due to the creature’s shrinking habitat.
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