Forum Big cats in borderlands: challenges and implications for transboundary conservation of Asian leopards M OHAMMAD S. FARHADINIA,SUSANA R OSTRO-GARCÍA,LIMIN F ENG J AN F. KAMLER,ANDREW S PALTON,ELENA S HEVTSOVA,IGOR K HOROZYAN M OHAMMED A L -DUAIS,JIANPING G E and D AVID W. MACDONALD Abstract Large carnivores have extensive spatial require- for the survival of these subspecies. Recent listing of the ments, with ranges that often span geopolitical borders. leopard in the Bonn Convention on the Conservation of Consequently, management of transboundary populations Migratory Species of Wild Animals is important, but more is subject to several political jurisdictions, often with hetero- international collaboration is needed to conserve these sub- geneity in conservation challenges. In continental Asia there species. We provide a spatial framework with which range are four threatened leopard subspecies with transboundary countries and international agencies could establish trans- populations spanning countries: the Persian Panthera boundary cooperation for conserving threatened leopards pardus saxicolor, Indochinese P. pardus delacouri, Arabian in Asia. P. pardus nimr and Amur P. pardus orientalis leopards. We Keywords Asia, Bonn Convention on the Conservation of reviewed the status of these subspecies and examined the Migratory Species of Wild Animals, borderland, conserva- challenges to, and opportunities for, their conservation. tion geopolitics, leopard, Panthera pardus, security fence, The Amur and Indochinese leopards have the majority transboundary (–%) of their remaining range in borderlands, and the Persian and Arabian leopards have –% of their re- maining ranges in borderlands. Overall, in of countries the majority of the remaining leopard range is in border- lands, and thus in most countries conservation of these Introduction subspecies is dependent on transboundary collaboration. arge carnivores have extensive spatial requirements that However, we found only two transboundary initiatives for may extend beyond geopolitical borders. Consequently, Asian leopards. Overall, we highlighted three key trans- L these wide-ranging animals can fall under several political boundary landscapes in regions that are of high importance jurisdictions, resulting in a diversity of conservation chal- lenges and efforts (Bischof et al., ; Linnell et al., ). MOHAMMAD S. FARHADINIA (Corresponding author, orcid.org/0000-0002- Neighbouring states may have different levels of techni- 5385-6254) Oxford Martin School and Department of Zoology, University of cal expertise, knowledge, capacity and financial resources Oxford, 34 Broad Street, Oxford OX1 3BD, UK (Karlstetter & Mallon, ). Importantly, persistence of E-mail [email protected] large carnivore populations in one country can depend, SUSANA ROSTRO-GARCÍA,JAN F. KAMLER* and DAVID W. MACDONALD Department – of Zoology, Wildlife Conservation Research Unit, University of Oxford, Oxford, because of source sink dynamics, on populations on the UK other side of an international border (Falcucci et al., ; LIMIN FENG and JIANPING GE Northeast Tiger and Leopard Biodiversity National Farhadinia et al., ; Feng et al., ). Conservation of Observation and Research Station, Monitoring and Research Center for Amur large carnivores requires a holistic appreciation of the Tiger and Amur Leopard, National Forestry and Grassland Administration, Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Biodiversity Science and geopolitical context (Hodgetts et al., ) for maintaining Engineering & College of Life Sciences, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, source populations as a priority and, where possible, enhan- China cing links to ensure persistence of metapopulations. ANDREW SPALTON Office of the Minister, Diwan of Royal Court, Muscat, Oman Although geopolitical borderlands are typically rich in ELENA SHEVTSOVA Federal Government Budgetary Institution United biodiversity, protecting these landscapes is often challen- Administration of the State Nature Biosphere Reserve Kedrovaya Pad and ging. National conservation programmes usually stop at in- Land of the Leopard National Park, Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment of the Russian Federation, Vladivostok, Russia ternational borders, but the species they aim to conserve IGOR KHOROZYAN Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany and the threats they strive to halt often do not (Macdonald et al., ). Borderlands are characterized by dynamic MOHAMMED AL-DUAIS Foundation Endangered Wildlife & Department of Biology, Ibb University, Ibb, Republic of Yemen social, political, economic and sometimes even ecological *Also at: Panthera, New York, USA transitions that, at extremes, may involve armed conflict Received February . Revision requested April . and political instability (McNeely, ). Man-made bar- Accepted June . First published online June . riers along geopolitical borders, intended to control This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, Downloaded fromdistribution, https://www.cambridge.org/core and reproduction in any medium,. IP address: provided 170.106.202.8 the original, work on 27 is Sep properly 2021 cited. at 09:20:50, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/termsOryx, 2021, 55(3),. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0030605319000693 452–460 © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605319000693 Big cats in borderlands 453 movement of people, can create an impediment for the extant) overlapping with borderlands, and length of border movement of large carnivores (Karlstetter & Mallon, ; lines, were calculated using QGIS .. (QGIS Development Linnell et al., ; Trouwborst et al., ). Expansion of Team, ). We assigned a range patch as transboundary if border security barriers is recognized as a threat to wildlife it overlapped with borderlands, which we defined as a buffer because they can cause mortality, obstruct access to season- zone of km from the borderline. We chose this size be- ally important resources, and reduce effective population cause it is the maximum dispersal distance for leopards size and viability (Linnell et al., ). Range shifts across in Asia, recorded for the Persian subspecies using satellite political borders induced by global climate change are telemetry in north-east Iran (Farhadinia et al., ). We also potential challenges for many species (Hannah, ). acknowledge that this buffer is an approximation, but there These challenges can add to the already precarious circum- are no similar data for the other Asian subspecies. stances of many large carnivores, which often occur at low densities and are prone to demographic and environmental stochasticity. Transboundary ranges Although its broad geographical range and charismatic There are six leopard subspecies across continental Asia appeal make the leopard Panthera pardus one of the most (Jacobson et al., ; Stein et al., ). We focus on those potent mammalian ambassador species, it is experiencing subspecies that have transboundary populations and are a greater range loss than most other large terrestrial carni- categorized, or are being petitioned to be categorized, as En- vores (Wolf & Ripple, ). In Asia, leopard subspecies cur- dangered or Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List of , rently occur in % of their historical range, with the only Threatened Species: the Persian P. pardus saxicolor (Endan- – relatively large populations ( individuals) occur- gered), Indochinese P. pardus delacouri (Critically Endan- ring in India, Sri Lanka and Iran (Jacobson et al., ; gered), Arabian P. pardus nimr (Critically Endangered), and Stein et al., ). Persistence of many small populations Amur P. pardus orientalis (Critically Endangered) leopards – of leopards is dependent on source sink dynamics across (Table , Plate ). international borders (Khorozyan et al., ; Farhadinia et al., ; Rostro-García et al., ; Feng et al., ; Maharramova et al., ; Askerov et al., ). Persian leopard Various international legal instruments exist that have a direct or indirect effect on the conservation of large The Persian leopard occurs across the rugged terrain of carnivores, including the Bonn Convention on the countries in western Asia and the Caucasus, with a popula- – . Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals tion of , individuals (Khorozyan, ) and % ’ (Karlstetter & Mallon, ; Trouwborst et al., ). The of the subspecies extant range within Iran (Jacobson et al., ’ Convention has evolved into an instrument focusing on ). In countries the Persian leopards range occurs the conservation of migratory wildlife crossing international exclusively in borderlands (Fig. , Table ), with small pop- , borders (Trouwborst et al., ). Recent listing of the leop- ulations of generally individuals (Askerov et al., ; ard in Appendix II of the Convention is a step towards ini- Avgan et al., ). These appear to be sink populations tiating global or regional agreements for the conservation on the brink of extinction (Askerov et al., ; Avgan and management of this species. However, it is not yet et al., ; Stein et al., ; Maharramova et al., ), clear what regional and global challenges are faced by leop- although under intensive conservation efforts they are able ard conservation in Asia and what opportunities exist