Gazelle : The Palestinian Biological Bulletin (ISSN 0178 – 6288) . Number 121, January 2015, pp. 1-20. | Page 8

8 diverse regions is a result of effective conservation of ibex and other prey animals (Khalaf-von Jaffa 1987, 2001, 2005). Sightings and Encounters In 1974, a leopard was killed in Bağözü village near Beypazarı, Turkey, following an attack on a woman. For three decades, this encounter was considered to have been the last confirmed sighting of an Anatolian leopard (Wikipedia). In 2010, a leopard was killed and skinned in the Siirt Province, Turkey. In September 2013, an animal captured by camera traps in the Trabzon Province in Turkey's northern region was identified as a leopard by biologists from the Karadeniz Technical University who asserted to have obtained several photos of leopards in the surveyed area. On 3 November 2013, a leopard was killed after it attacked a shepherd in Diyarbakır Province in the country's southern region (Wikipedia). The Anatolian Leopard (Panthera pardus tulliana Valenciennes, 1856) which was killed in the Turkish Diyarbakir Çınar District on 03.11.2013. http://fotogaleri.hurriyet.com.tr/galeridetay/75095/2/13/leopari-oldurmenin-cezasi-bellioldu The Kaplani of Samos Island in Greece There are no recent reports of encounters with the animal in Greece, though at the end of the 18th century an Anatolian leopard from Asia Minor was forced, either by a flooding of the Maeander River or by wildfire, to swim over to the nearby Samos Island, where it became the apex predator and the scourge of domestic animals (Wikipedia). The Kaplani (Greek: Καπλάνι from Turkish: Kaplan meaning Tiger) was hunted by farmers and shepherds and was forced to take refuge in a cave. The entrance Gazelle : The Palestinian Biological Bulletin – Number 121 – January 2015