Conservation challenges for the Arabian Leopard (Panthera pardus nimr) in the Western Highlands of Arabia

Abstract

ABSTRACTA high proportion of Arabian leopard killings can be attributed to livestock protection. In the process of catching goats, sheep, young camels or other domestic animals, leopards often interfere with human activities and are considered by livestock farmers as direct competitors. With the ongoing decrease of natural prey species, such as Nubian ibex, rock hyrax, Arabian mountain gazelles and cape hare, leopards are now having to shift their diet to livestock. This naturally increases their unpopularity amongst most livestock farmers whom they come into direct, or indirect, contact with. In most cases, leopards are considered a threat for humans. As a result, leopards are hunted within all of their natural range and with different methods, such as trapping and poisoning. In the early part of the 1980s, it was common to use anticoagulant rat killer for poisoning; however, this stopped in 1985. Today, however, other poisons are used by shepherds to kill predators, which include leopards. A total of 52 known incidences of Arabian leopard poisoning have been recorded in Saudi Arabia from the early nineteenth century to February 2014. Shepherds poison the carcasses of domestic sheep, goats, camel or donkeys thought to have been killed by predators such Arabian wolf, striped hyena or stray dogs and, invariably, it is the elusive Arabian leopard who tends to eat these carcasses. The population of Arabian leopards in Saudi Arabia has almost been wiped out and exists in extremely low numbers in remote mountain ranges. A national leopard strategy and action plan known as the Saudi Leopard Conservation Plan has been developed to protect them from extinction, but further field research and public awareness-raising with regards to banning poisoning or killing the species is absolutely necessary to ensure their survival.