Land Mines in Middle East Offer Leopards Unique Refuge

Usually if an area is laced with land mines, even the quickest and most light-footed creature would avoid such an imperiled environment altogether. But for Persian leopards in the Middle East, along the Iraq-Iran border, abandoned minefields offer these cats a very unique refuge.

Some 20 million landmines remained unexploded in this region, which has seen many conflicts over the years, and yet the Persian leopard has endured.

These lethal explosives keep out hunters and poachers that don't want to get blown away, so these prowling predators are provided a safe haven of sorts. But it's not as if these leopards have somehow defied the laws of gravity. National Geographic notes that the animals can spread their weight across four paws, treading lightly among the land mines that require about 180 pounds of pressure to detonate.

"Environmentally speaking, mines are great, because they keep people out," Azzam Alwash, of the wildlife organization Nature Iraq, told National Geographic.

The Persian leopard is listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). While there are no official counts, the IUCN estimates that there are fewer than 1,300 adults in the wild worldwide. Their greatest threats include hunting for their lush pelts as part of the fur trade and killing in defense of livestock.

"Leopards are having to go nearer villages to hunt prey, and this has brought them into conflict with livestock farmers, who use poison or kill the animal with a rifle," said Arash Ghoddousi, who is involved in Iran's Persian Leopard Project.

Also, habitat loss from infrastructure development, deforestation, wildfire and livestock grazing is driving these leopards into smaller and smaller range, creating even more conflicts with humans.

According to National Geographic, Persian leopards, once spread across the Caucasus region, have been reduced to the former war zone between Iran and Iraq.

There is a sort of Catch 22 to the situation, in which the land mines offer a unique and accidental protection for Persian leopards - the largest leopards in the world - but also still pose a threat to local residents. Conservationists are in a tight spot as they oppose some land-mine clearance efforts, knowing the danger of these previous war zones.

While the situation of the Persian leopard seems precarious, some, including retired hunter Ahmed Kurdi, remain optimistic.

"The leopard is very strong," he said. "They're incredible animals. We couldn't kill them all even if we wanted to."

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