Nurturing Wildlife in War-Torn Afghanistan (the Persian leopard returns!)

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.wcs.org/wcs-org/news-and-features-main/nyt-afghanistan-green-blog.aspx

Nurturing Wildlife in War-Torn Afghanistan

December 5, 2011



Recent camera trap images from the rocky terrain of Afghanistan’s central highlands have revealed a surprise: a Persian leopard, an apex predator long thought to have disappeared from the region.

In a series of images that provides indisputable proof that the big cat persists in the country’s interior, a big adult leopard can be seen prowling around the pathway (directly in the camera trap’s field of view) and investigating the camera itself, appearing to threaten it with canines exposed.

The New York Times reports on the most recent camera trap surveys—and WCS’s contributions to conservation and democratization in Afghanistsan—in http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/02/nurturing-wildlife-in-war-torn-afghanistan/">this video post on the Green blog.