Tweet
The Times (London)
July 20, 2013 Saturday
Edition 1; Ireland
A leopard is alive, well and living in Europe (just)
by Simon Barnes
EDITORIAL; OPINION, COLUMNS; Pg. 18
Aleopard has been spotted - please share my delight in the
double-meaning - running wild in Europe. Its image has been caught by
a camera trap lurking in the darkness, a black and white picture,
black and charcoal grey, really, but unmistakably a leopard. Or more
precisely, unmistakably a leopard's tail.
But it's a lovely tail and all the more meaningful as it's not any old
leopard. It's a Euro-leopard, one of our own. It's not exactly from
the suburbs of Paris or downtown Brentford, but Armenia counts as
Europe these days and first entered the Eurovision Song Contest in
2006 (André, Without Your Love, though readers may prefer Emmy's Boom
Boom, which failed to qualify from the semi-final by a single vote in
2011).
Armenia lies on the Caucasus, between the Black and the Caspian Sea,
and out on the far edge of Europe the Caucasian leopard still lives,
in small numbers, immensely secretive and deeply skilled in the art of
people-avoidance. There have been just a handful of records from
Armenia in recent years, mostly from around the southern border with
Iran.
This one was nabbed in the Caucasus Wildlife Refuge, on the
southwestern slopes of the Geghama mountains.
It's been eight years since leopards have been seen here. This year a
scat - dropping - and hair were found.
This is an animal right on the far reaches of the possible. The
Euro-leopard sounds like a contradiction or description of life in the
Pleistocene, but here in the 21st century it is still possible for
leopards to make their living in Europe, which is a thrilling thought.
'The leopard is no longer a ghost," declared Manuk Manukyan,
co-ordinator of conservation projects for the Foundation for the
Preservation of Wildlife and Cultural Assets (FPWC). Manukyan is one
of the few people to have set eyes on a wild Caucasian leopard. "We
know he or she is there and that the habitat is suitable. It is very
quiet and there is plenty of prey. We will adjust the cameras and
sooner or later we will get pictures of the entire animal."
The Caucasian leopard is the largest of the nine recognised leopard
sub-species and is down to about 1,000 mature individuals, mostly in
Iran. But one of the great things about leopards is that they are
smart and sneaky. The African sub-species is skilled at living on the
edges of towns, keeping out of sight, hunting by stealth and sticking
to the darkness. They are better than any other large predator at
living alongside humans, not least because they are so unobtrusive.
Plenty of people live alongside leopards without knowing a thing about
it.
The Armenian population of Caucasian leopards is now desperately low
in numbers, with the usual suite of human-generated hardships. There
are maybe a dozen in all. They would not be viable in such numbers,
but this is not an isolated population. They can connect over the
Iranian border with the leopards there, wildlife being notoriously
disrespectful of political boundaries, and there are about 500 or so
Caucasian leopards there.
Connectivity. That's what counts. Leopards have to be connected to
other leopards, and wild country has to be connected to wild country.
If the Euro-leopard is to survive, we must keep open the corridors
that connect leopard to leopard.
This is all part of the work of the FPWC, a partner organisation of
the World Land Trust (WLT), of which I am a council member. They have
given financial support to the Armenian organisation, which has used
it to buy acquisition with local communities and to fund staff members
working at the sharp end as part of its Keepers of the Wild programme.
One of the most effective ways of using money in conservation is to
support highly motivated but cash-strapped organisations in developing
nations, and that's what WLT is all about.
Deeper, non-physical levels of connectivity are involved here: the
connection between leopard and human. The idea of leopards still
living in Europe is very powerful. Every year a new and ferocious
creature turns up in England, one that exists only in newspaper
columns, vividly imprecise eyewitness reports, blurry photographs of
black pussy cats and our eternal appetite for monsters: the Beast of
Bodmin, the Surrey Puma, the Fen Tiger.
We have a craving for such beasts, a nostalgia for a more untrammelled
life. There is always a part of us that wants to believe big cat
stories: why else do they make such good copy? It is, then, rather
fine to learn that there really are leopards on our continent, right
on the fringes of the nul-points zone feeding on wild goats where no
one can see them, but just occasionally giving us a small hint of
their existence like the waving of this most excellent back end. This
tale, I hope, will run and run.
July 20, 2013 Saturday
Edition 1; Ireland
A leopard is alive, well and living in Europe (just)
by Simon Barnes
EDITORIAL; OPINION, COLUMNS; Pg. 18
Aleopard has been spotted - please share my delight in the
double-meaning - running wild in Europe. Its image has been caught by
a camera trap lurking in the darkness, a black and white picture,
black and charcoal grey, really, but unmistakably a leopard. Or more
precisely, unmistakably a leopard's tail.
But it's a lovely tail and all the more meaningful as it's not any old
leopard. It's a Euro-leopard, one of our own. It's not exactly from
the suburbs of Paris or downtown Brentford, but Armenia counts as
Europe these days and first entered the Eurovision Song Contest in
2006 (André, Without Your Love, though readers may prefer Emmy's Boom
Boom, which failed to qualify from the semi-final by a single vote in
2011).
Armenia lies on the Caucasus, between the Black and the Caspian Sea,
and out on the far edge of Europe the Caucasian leopard still lives,
in small numbers, immensely secretive and deeply skilled in the art of
people-avoidance. There have been just a handful of records from
Armenia in recent years, mostly from around the southern border with
Iran.
This one was nabbed in the Caucasus Wildlife Refuge, on the
southwestern slopes of the Geghama mountains.
It's been eight years since leopards have been seen here. This year a
scat - dropping - and hair were found.
This is an animal right on the far reaches of the possible. The
Euro-leopard sounds like a contradiction or description of life in the
Pleistocene, but here in the 21st century it is still possible for
leopards to make their living in Europe, which is a thrilling thought.
'The leopard is no longer a ghost," declared Manuk Manukyan,
co-ordinator of conservation projects for the Foundation for the
Preservation of Wildlife and Cultural Assets (FPWC). Manukyan is one
of the few people to have set eyes on a wild Caucasian leopard. "We
know he or she is there and that the habitat is suitable. It is very
quiet and there is plenty of prey. We will adjust the cameras and
sooner or later we will get pictures of the entire animal."
The Caucasian leopard is the largest of the nine recognised leopard
sub-species and is down to about 1,000 mature individuals, mostly in
Iran. But one of the great things about leopards is that they are
smart and sneaky. The African sub-species is skilled at living on the
edges of towns, keeping out of sight, hunting by stealth and sticking
to the darkness. They are better than any other large predator at
living alongside humans, not least because they are so unobtrusive.
Plenty of people live alongside leopards without knowing a thing about
it.
The Armenian population of Caucasian leopards is now desperately low
in numbers, with the usual suite of human-generated hardships. There
are maybe a dozen in all. They would not be viable in such numbers,
but this is not an isolated population. They can connect over the
Iranian border with the leopards there, wildlife being notoriously
disrespectful of political boundaries, and there are about 500 or so
Caucasian leopards there.
Connectivity. That's what counts. Leopards have to be connected to
other leopards, and wild country has to be connected to wild country.
If the Euro-leopard is to survive, we must keep open the corridors
that connect leopard to leopard.
This is all part of the work of the FPWC, a partner organisation of
the World Land Trust (WLT), of which I am a council member. They have
given financial support to the Armenian organisation, which has used
it to buy acquisition with local communities and to fund staff members
working at the sharp end as part of its Keepers of the Wild programme.
One of the most effective ways of using money in conservation is to
support highly motivated but cash-strapped organisations in developing
nations, and that's what WLT is all about.
Deeper, non-physical levels of connectivity are involved here: the
connection between leopard and human. The idea of leopards still
living in Europe is very powerful. Every year a new and ferocious
creature turns up in England, one that exists only in newspaper
columns, vividly imprecise eyewitness reports, blurry photographs of
black pussy cats and our eternal appetite for monsters: the Beast of
Bodmin, the Surrey Puma, the Fen Tiger.
We have a craving for such beasts, a nostalgia for a more untrammelled
life. There is always a part of us that wants to believe big cat
stories: why else do they make such good copy? It is, then, rather
fine to learn that there really are leopards on our continent, right
on the fringes of the nul-points zone feeding on wild goats where no
one can see them, but just occasionally giving us a small hint of
their existence like the waving of this most excellent back end. This
tale, I hope, will run and run.