Captured Iranian Leopard in the Caucasus to Be Released Soon

An Iranian leopard that was trapped in the Abkhazia region of the Caucasus will soon be released back into the wild. Abkhazia is legally considered part of Georgia but functions independently in practice. The Russian Ministry of Natural Resources stated on Friday, November 17, that a leopard of the Iranian species, which was captured on Thursday in Abkhazia, will be returned to the wild after a short stay at a rehabilitation center near Sochi. According to TASS news agency, this leopard, named Victoria, is one of three Iranian leopards that were released into the wild in July 2016. The Russian Ministry of Natural Resources mentioned in its statement, "After identifying this animal, the responsible authorities in Abkhazia returned it to the leopard rehabilitation center in the outskirts of Sochi. Victoria will soon be released into the wild of the Caucasus region with a collar equipped with a satellite tracker." This leopard had been hunting chickens in a village in Abkhazia for a week before it was finally caught in a trap set by local residents. They lured the leopard into the trap by placing a live chicken in a large cage. The animal was unharmed, and wildlife experts from the Caucasus and Moscow Zoo were dispatched to the area to identify this wild animal. The distance between the last sighting of this leopard in mid-June 2017 and the village in Abkhazia where it was trapped is about 100 kilometers. This fact supports experts' views that these animals require a very large habitat. TASS recalls that until the mid-20th century, many Iranian leopards lived in the Caucasus region. However, in the 1950s, their numbers drastically declined and became completely rare or extinct in parts of this region due to human activities. Studies conducted in 2004 and 2005 revealed that only 10 to 15 Iranian leopards remained in all of Russia's wildlife. In 2005, experts from the World Wildlife Fund in Russia and the Russian Academy of Sciences developed a comprehensive long-term plan to reintroduce the Iranian leopard into the wildlife of the Caucasus region. Russian President Vladimir Putin has personally supported this plan since 2009. In 2009, with the support of the World Wildlife Fund, a rehabilitation center for Iranian leopards was established in the wildlife park near Sochi. Initially, two male leopards from Turkmenistan and two female leopards from Iran were released in this area. Later, a pair of leopards from the Lisbon Zoo was brought to the region, and their first cubs were born in 2013. By 2016, a total of 14 leopard cubs had been born, three of which were released in protected areas of the Caucasus region in June 2016.