Abstract: We describe the use of camera-trapping with capture-recapture, occupancy and visitation rate modelling to study the size, demographic structure and distribution of the Persian leopard Panthera pardus saxicolor in Bamu National Park, southern Iran. A total sampling effort of 1,012 trap-nights yielded photo-captures of four adults, two subadult individuals and a cub over 21 sampling occasions. The leopard population size estimated by the M(h) model and jackknife estimator was 6.00 – SE 0.24 individuals. This gives a density of 1.87 – SE 0.07 leopards per 100 km2. Detection probability was constant and low and, as a result, estimated occupancy rate was significantly higher than that predicted from photographic capture sites alone. Occupancy was 56% of the protected area and visitation rates were 0.01– 0.05 visits per day. The most imminent threats to leopards in Bamu are poaching and habitat fragmentation.
Abstract: The current status and distribution of caracal Caracal caracal in Bahram’gur Protected Area (BPA), southern Iran, were studied using different methods for 12 months. Direct observations were restricted to spot-lighting at night, a method which produced three caracal observations. Twelve photos of a male caracal were taken with camera traps. The main prey items were determined from a limited number of scat samples to be cape hare Lepus capensis and various rodents. Attack by herd dogs and road kills were determined to be the main threats facing this species in BPA.
Abstract: On 21 December 2007 one of the Stealthcam camera traps used in the carnivore survey carried out for the Atlas of Bushehr
Wildlife project in the Khaeez free zone (40 km from the coast of the Persian Gulf) captured a photo of an adult male Persian leopard Panthera pardus saxicolor
Abstract: The Persian leopard Panthera pardus saxicolor is the largest member of eight felid species surviving today in Iran, after the extinction of the Asiatic lion Panthera leo persica and the Caspian tiger Panthera tigris virgata in the past 70 years. The stronghold of this endangered subspecies is Iran. Over the past 25 years the Persian leopard was exterminated in many areas of its global range and in the others its numbers have plummeted. Bamu National Park (BNP) has long been one of the best habitats for the subspecies in southern Iran, but leopards there face severe threats nowadays.
Abstract: As part of a camera-trapping survey for the identification of felid species in Khojir National Park, Iran, a manul or Pallas’s
cat Otocolobus manul was photographed on 6 February 2008 for the first time. There being only a few reports
of this secretive cat in Iran, this new locality is very interesting with regard to its national range.
Abstract: The Varjin Protected Area (26,907 ha) is one of the unique landscapes of the Alborz Mountains. The survey was carried out between 2005 and 2007. In 43 days of survey, 100 bird species were observed in various parts of the Protected Area. 25 species were new records for the area. As designated in the Department of the Environment (DOE) laws, 5 species are categorised as "Endangered" and 20 as "protected species".
Abstract: Large carnivores need vast home ranges containing different habitat qualities and are most involved in conflicts with humans; hence the knowledge of their distribution pattern and habitat requirements is of great importance for their conservation. The Brown bear (Ursus arctos) has an important role in the people of Croatia and Slovenia‟s socioeconomic and land use activities, and has been actively managed in the past decades. Developing an understanding of the bear-habitat relationship will improve bear management and will help in the long-term conservation of this population in the Dinaric Mountains, in the face of increasing resource extraction and human activities. In this study, habitat suitability of the Brown bears in Croatia and Slovenia was studies in relation to natural and anthropogenic elements. Using 132,344 GPS locations from telemetry of 43 bears, responses to the land use types, human settlements, supplemental feeding stations (only for Slovenia) and the forest patches was examined. In both countries, bears predominantly were occupying the cohesive forest patches over 5000 hectares and in distances close (<1000 m) to the feeding stations, but in intermediate (1000-2000 m) distances from human disturbance. Measuring the interaction of these elements through habitat suitability modelling, using generalized linear models, probability of bear presence was increasing in distances farther away from cities and villages inside forest landscape in both countries. However, distances to settlements in Croatia did not show an interaction with forest patches, but it Slovenia probability of bear presence was stable in the same interaction. Bear presence was sharply decreasing in distances farther from feeding station inside and outside the forest patches in Slovenia suggesting that this factor must be considered in future bear-habitat studies wherever supplemental feeding is being practiced. Supplemental feeding seems to be an effective way of reducing wildlife conflicts but has showed negative impacts on species biology and behavior. Key recommendations for future conservation include continued and spatially extended monitoring efforts, study the effects of supplemental feeding on bear ecology and piloting the feasibility of recolonization of bears in the Eastern Alps.
