A Persian panther, also known as the Persian leopard, was captured in a mountainous region in northern Iraq, where it had to have a leg amputated on Friday (December 31) due to an injury, a photographer from the 'AFP.
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The Persian panther is a subspecies of leopards found in an area covering the Caucasus, Iran and Afghanistan in particular. It is considered “
endangered
” by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). There are less than a thousand left in the world. The veterinarian Souleiman Tamr at the Dohuk zoo proceeded on Friday to amputate the hind leg of the beast, a "
Persian leopard
" about five years old and weighing between 90 and 100 kilos.
The inhabitants of a village near Zakho, in Iraqi Kurdistan, had lost about twenty sheep before realizing that their animals had been attacked by a leopard, said Colonel Jamal Saado, head of the police for the protection of the. environment in Dohuk province. A trap set by a shepherd injured the leopard, which however managed to escape and injured two villagers, according to Colonel Saado.
The animal was eventually found by the police with the help of the villagers and was captured on Thursday. "
He was injured in the leg, we administered two or three doses of anesthetics to capture him,
" the colonel said on Friday.
Perhaps
"
four or five years ago
", "
we had two or three similar cases in the province of Erbil (in Kurdistan), and years ago we saw a beast of the same species close to 'a village in Dohuk, but she had been found dead,
”he said. The leopard “
will remain under our watch for a long time. And if he can't be released he will live in the zoo
», Clarified Souleiman Tamr the veterinarian who also heads an association for the protection of animals in Kurdistan.