Prince of Persia

The plans to travel for a unique photograph of the Persian Leopard have been born in my head for a long time. In 2017 I was almost to buy tickets to Iran, where today is the last viable population of one of the largest species of spotted leopard. Cooperation with the locals was established, the project itinerary was planned, but in the final I decided between this event and the expedition to Mongolia to see the snow leopard - Irbis won. 

Perhaps, unknowingly, I saved by this decision at least my photo technique and considerable financial costs. A few weeks after my return from Mongolia, I heard about the imprisonment of several Iranian zoologists, who are monitoring Asian cheetah and Persian leopard with the help of classical trail traps. Charge? Espionage! Find out more under the #anyhopefornature hashtag...

So I rejected the thoughts on Iran, but the "Persian" still woke me up from my dreams. After dozens of lengthy and difficult communications with various world feline experts, I got a tip and contact to the WWF Armenian office and hit the jackpot! Relatively easy and quick comunication with the helpful people from the fund and planned to install my traps in October 2019. Yet there was such a small, slight problem - in the area where I will operate lives only ONE leopard and in whole Armenia no more than ten pieces! I returned to Armenia at start of February. 

To cut a long story short - unfortunately, two of the four sets were absolutely flat. One was pulled down by a bear and "he" did not bother to even take a picture. In the second, the wiring to the motion sensor was bitten from the mouse and no pics. The third was a big surprise, because after three months worked beautifully, but unfortunately the cat did not record. And the fourth was a WINNER - I took one of the few, if not the very first, photos of the Persian Leopard (Panthera pardus saxicolor)!