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Panthera pardus | UAE National Red List of Mammals: Marine and Terrestrial

Location
Countries in Assessment
United Arab Emirates (the)
Country ISO code(s)
ARE
Does the assessment cover a marine EEZ area(s)?
Off
Scope (Assessment)
National
Taxon
Taxonomic Group
Vertebrates
Taxonomic Group Level 2
Mammals
Assessed taxon level
Species
Taxonomic Notes
According to genetic analyses, nine subspecies are recognized, with all continental African Leopards attributable to the nominate form, P. p. pardus (Miththapala et al. 1996, Uphyrkina et al. 2001).
Taxon distribution as listed in assessment
There are a number of records of Leopard in the mountains of the northern UAE and it is once likely to have occurred widely there. Thesiger (1949) wrote that a Leopard visited Jebel Hafeet ...some years ago. There is a report of a Leopard shot in Masafi, east of Sharjah, in 1962 (Harrison 1968) and another report from Qalidda Pass (Harrison 1971). Hellyer (1993) said there had been nine reports in the previous 30 years. These included one wounded on Jebel Hafeet in 1976, which later died in Al Ain Zoo; a male shot in Ras al Khaimah in July 1986; a female and two young adults in the same Emirate in December 1986, and the capture of one Leopard near Masafi in February 1991. A leopard was shot in the upper part of Wadi Zibat, a tributary of Wadi Bih with permanent water, in November 1992 and its skull retrieved, and another was shot in the same locality in May 1993 (Hellyer 1993). A Leopard was killed in the Al Wa'eeb area of Musandam in 1994 and another was seen there in August 1994 (Hellyer 1994). Since then there have been a few reports of Leopard tracks in the mountains, including at Hatta, but none of these has been confirmed. Summaries of Leopard status in UAE are provided in Aspinall et al. (2005) and Edmonds et al. (2006). There is no convincing evidence to indicate that the species is still present in UAE. Reports from the Omani sector of the Musandam Peninsula continued through the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, including eight killed in 1980, but with no confirmed reports since 1997 it appears that the species no longer occurs in the Hajar Mountains of Oman (Spalton et al. 2006). Leopards are widely distributed across Africa and Asia, but they have been extirpated from large portions of their historic range (Stein et al. 2016). Populations across the Arabian Peninsula are at critically low levels (Mallon and Budd 2011).
Habitats and Ecology
Ecological system type
Terrestrial system
No
Freshwater system
No
Marine system
No
Habitat
Habitat details as listed in assessment
All UAE records are from mountains and wadis in the Hajar range.
Is there a map available in assessment?
Yes
Assessed status
Asessment status in full
Regionally extinct
Assessment status abreviation
RE
Assessment rationale/justification
There are a number of records of Leopard in the mountains of the northern UAE and it is once likely to have occurred widely there. However, the species is assessed as Regionally Extinct because there have been no confirmed records since 1994 and there is no convincing evidence to show that the species still occurs in UAE. There is no rescue effect because there are believed to be no leopards left in Musandam or the northern Hajar Mountains of Oman.
About the assessment
Assessment year
2018
Assessors/contributors/reviewers listed
UAE National Red List Workshop
Affliation of assessor(s)/contributors/reviewers listed on assessment
Government
IGO
Assessor affiliation specific
Government|IGO
Criteria system
Criteria system specifics
IUCN v3.1
Criteria system used
IUCN
Criteria Citation
IUCN. 2012. IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria: Version 3.1, Second edition. IUCN, Gland, Switzerland and Cambridge, UK. iv + 32pp pp. And IUCN. 2012. Guidelines for Application of IUCN Red List Criteria at Regional and National Levels: Version 4.0. Gland, Switzerland and Cambridge, UK: IUCN. iii + 41pp.
Endemism
Endemic to region
Not assigned
Endemism Notes
Is an endemic?: Not_assigned
Conservation
Threats listed in assessment
Persecution (shooting, trapping and poisoning) as well as reduction in the prey base (due to hunting and competition with increasing numbers of livestock), development of wadis, limited access to water, and fragmentation are considered to be the main causes of the decline of the species in UAE (Edmonds et al. 2006). The reports in the 1990s coincided with abundant rainfall during that decade, which was not the case in the 2000s, and drought may have hastened the disappearance of the species from the UAE (G. Feulner, pers. comm. 2018).
Conservation Measures

Conservation measures:
Conservation measures notes:
Required conservation measures:

Further information
History
There have been no confirmed records since 1994 and there is no convincing evidence to show that the species still occurs in UAE. Hornby (1996) assessed the species as Critically Endangered, perhaps on the assumption that some animals may persist. The backcasted 1996 assessment for this species is Critically Endangered (CR D).