Gazelle : The Palestinian Biological Bulletin (ISSN 0178 – 6288) . Number 136, April 2016, pp. 1-35. | Page 6

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to have died out within the borders of present-day Greece in A.D. 80-100
(Guggisberg, 1961; Khalaf-von Jaffa, 2006).
Lions were probably found in the Azerbaijan area up to the 10th century A.D.
Their disappearance from the reed thickets and pistachio and juniper forests is
primarily associated with an increase in human population and a change in
environmental conditions, which in turn led to the decline of ungulates in the
region (Heptner and Sludskii 1972; Khalaf-von Jaffa, 2006).
The thickets of the Jordan River in Palestine were a preferred habitat. Lions could
still be found in the vicinity of Samaria, Lejun (near Megiddo), Ramla, the area of
Nahr (River) Al-Auja and the coastal forests in the early 14th century (Khalaf-von
Jaffa, 2001, 2006). The last recorded Palestinian Lion was in 1630 at Al-Shari‟a
area (Jordan River) to the east of Jericho.
The Lions disappeared from the Moroccan coast by the mid-1800s. They may
have survived in the High Atlas Mountains up to the 1940s; and the last known
lion in Algeria was killed in 1893 near Batna, 97 km south of Constantine; and the
last known lion killed in Tunisia was in 1891 near Babouch, between Tabarka
and Ain-Draham; and Lions were extirpated from Tripolitania, western Libya as
early as 1700 (Guggisberg, 1961; Khalaf-von Jaffa, 2006).
The Last known lion in Turkey was killed in 1870 near Birecik on the Eurphrates
(Üstay 1990); and Sir Alfred Pease reported that lions still existed west of Aleppo,
Syria, in 1891 (Kinnear 1920; Khalaf-von Jaffa, 2006).
The Lions occurred in the vicinity of Mosul, Iraq in the 1850s. The Turkish
governor's bag of two in 1914 is the last report of them from the area (Kinnear
1920; Khalaf-von Jaffa, 2006).
The Lions were reported to be numerous in the reedy swamps bordering the
Tigris and the Euphrates rivers in the early 1870s. The last known lion in Iraq
was killed in 1918 on the lower Tigris (Hatt 1959; Khalaf-von Jaffa, 2006).
The valley of Dashtiarjan, 57 km west of Shiraz in Iran, was famous for its lions
in the late 1800s. The last known report of lion presence in Iran was a 1942
observation of a pair near Dizful, by American engineers building a railway
(Heaney 1943; Khalaf-von Jaffa, 2006).
There are no confirmed records of lion presence in central or eastern Iran, nor
Afghanistan or Baluchistan (Guggisberg, 1961; Khalaf-von Jaffa, 2006).
The last known lion in Pakistan was killed near Kot Deji in Sind province in 1810.
However, a British admiral travelling by train reported seeing a maneless lion
near Quetta, north-western Pakistan in 1935, eating a goat: "It was a large lion,
Gazelle : The Palestinian Biological Bulletin – Number 136 – April 2016