The Anatolian leopard is an endangered leopard subspecies, which lives in southwest Asia. Also called the Persian leopard or Asia Minor leopard, it was proposed in the 19th century as a distinct leopard subspecies native to southwestern Turkey. In this part of Turkey, the leopard population is considered locally extinct since the mid-1970s. In southeastern Turkey, it was sighted in Bitlis Province in 2008. The first camera trap photograph of a leopard in Turkey was obtained in September 2013 in Trabzon Province in the country's eastern part. In November 2013, a leopard was killed in the Çınar district of Diyarbakır Province. This specimen was considered the westernmost observation of the subspecies.
Taxonomy
Felis tulliana was the scientific name used by Achille Valenciennes in 1856 who described a leopard from the area of Smyrna in western Turkey. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the Anatolian leopard was considered a distinct leopard subspecies occurring only in western Turkey. In 2017, P. p. ciscaucasia was subsumed to P. p. tulliana.
Characteristics
In 1856, the Anatolian leopard was described as having a grayish, slightly reddish fur with large rosettes on the flanks and back, smaller ones on the shoulder and upper legs, and spots on the head and neck. It is similar in size to the African leopard.
Distribution and habitat
The Anatolian leopard was thought to have ranged in the Aegean and western parts of Turkey. It was not recorded in the Black Sea region. Stone traps for leopards and Caspian tigers dating to the Roman Empire still exist in the Taurus Mountains. Since surveys were not carried out in western Turkey until the mid-1980s, biologists doubted whether leopards still survived in this part of Anatolia. Sighting reports from the environs of Alanya in the south of the Lycian peninsula suggested that a scattered population existed between Finike, Antalya and Alanya in the early 1990s. Fresh faecal pellets found in Termessos National Park in 1992 were attributed to an Anatolian leopard. A decade later, no signs of the presence of leopards were detected in Termessos National Park. Interviews conducted with local people and national park personnel did not corroborate the presence of leopards in this area. During surveys carried out between 1993 and 2002, zoologists found evidence of leopards in the upper forest and alpine zones of the Pontic Mountains in northern Anatolia. In this area, possible prey species include wild ungulates such as deer, chamois, wild goat, wild boar but also European hare and Caucasian grouse. It is unknown whether a significant number of leopards still exist in Anatolia. Extensive trophy hunting is thought to be the prime factor for the decline and possible extinction of the Anatolian leopard. One hunter named Mantolu Hasan killed at least fifteen leopards between 1930 and 1950. In eastern Turkey, the range of the Anatolian leopard converges with the range of the Persian leopard. A male leopard camera trapped in the Georgian Vashlovani National Park in 2003 was considered a Caucasian leopard. Leopards recorded in Galilee, Golan Heights and in the Judaean Desert are considered Arabian leopards. The last leopard in Syria is reputed to have been killed in 1963 in the Alauwit Mountains.
Sightings and encounters
In 1974 a leopard was killed in Bağözü village near Beypazarı following an attack on a woman. For three decades, this encounter was considered to have been the last confirmed sighting of an Anatolian leopard. In 2010, a leopard was killed and skinned in the Siirt Province. In September 2013, an animal captured by camera traps in the Trabzon Province in Turkey's northern region was identified as a leopard by biologists from the Karadeniz Technical University who asserted to have obtained several photos of leopards in the surveyed area. On 3 November 2013, a leopard was killed after it attacked a shepherd in Diyarbakır Province in the country's southern region. In 2019, the Turkish Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry's Nature Protection initiated a survey to document wildlife in the country by using camera traps and quadcopters.
The Natural History Museum of the Aegean on Samos Island exhibits a stuffed leopard that was allegedly killed on the island in 1862. It carries a label with the name Kaplani, Καπλάνι, indicating it is a leopard. Its size, shape and coat colour is rather unnatural for a leopard, but may have been altered in the process of preparing the skin. It is possible that an Anatolian leopard reached the island by swimming across a channel from the Turkish coast, which is about farther east. The story of the leopard and the exhibit inspired Greek author Alki Zei to write a novel for children in italic=yes, translated as Wildcat under Glass.
In culture
Anatolian leopard is the title of a fictional film directed by Emre Kayis.
