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Sarıkaya Lynx Project that was initiated by the Society for the Protection of Natural Resources and Biodiversity (DoğaDer) in 2016 to develop a solution against an unusual human-carnivore conflict in the Sarıkaya Wildlife Reserve (SWR) in western Antalya has been completed recently. During its preliminary survey in the villages around Sarikaya YHGS a year before the project, DoğaDer's discovered that the local people believed that the lynx was the reason of decrease in wild goat population and therefore have a negative attitude towards this cat species.
Unfortunately, the reason behind this conflict lies beneath the hunting tourism practices carried out in all wildlife reserves in Turkey for years. Half of the revenue derived from the hunting tourism in the wildlife reserves were transferred to the villages nearby the reserves by the Turkish Government. Although this practice included the villagers into wildlife protection and increased the number of wild goats in nature areas in recent years, the poaching could not be completely finished. The number of wild goats was greatly reduced in some conservation areas because of the old school practices used although their ineptness was well known. Both the villagers and the ministry of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry claimed that the reason behind the reduction in wild goats was lynx and wolf, and consciously accepted them as "harmful species".
Calling large carnivores, which are keystone species for ecosystems, harmful is a serious problem. Instead of directly increasing awareness of villagers and the ministry personnel, which is usually conducted in most human-carnivore conflict projects, Sarıkaya Lynx Project followed an indirect path that was of no interest of lynx. The project focused totally on solving the poaching problem and a team of villagers and ministry personnel was formed at the beginning stage. Possible trails used by the poachers in the wildlife reserve were identified by the villagers who know the area well and several camera-traps were purchased through the project. These traps were set on these trails and the ministry’s 4-wheel drive trucks provided the transportation. When setting the traps, villagers and ministry personnel were trained on camera-trapping, i.e. selecting the trails, adjusting the camera settings, etc. in the field. The camera-traps were regularly checked by a team of villagers, ministry personnel and project team to establish their knowledge. All these activities were done in secret.