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Turkey's 'wild ones'
x0x Turkey's 'wild ones'
[See more on this subject by visiting the pages selected for you by Anita Donohoe: http://www.TurkRadio.us/k/yaban/ By HALiM DiKER Desert monitor, dormouse, lynx, Egyptian mongoose. Their names may be new to most of us, but they are not new to Anatolia. As the snowflakes build up like sugar raining from the sky, I watch them fall under the towering Scotch pines in temperatures approaching minus twenty Centigrade. A pair of eyes in the brush warm my heart. Every now and then he breaks off a shoot from the birch tree, devours it and sets to staring at me again. No doubt he's wondering if I'm a hunter. He approaches me gradually, pausing first under a tree to brush off the snow with his spindly legs before starting to gnaw the yellowed grass. Then he comes even closer. There is only ten meters between us now. It's my first time to see a dewy-eyed roe deer up this close. He is just one of the many wild animals that live in Turkey. Many became extinct long ago, others are on the verge. Cheetahs no longer kick up the Anatolian dust. Tigers no longer chase deer. But fallow deer, hyenas, monitor lizards, lynxes, wild sheep and others continue to inhabit Turkey's mountains, forests, and rock cliffs. What would you say to leaving modern life behind briefly and making a foray into the wild? WILD SHEEP: UNIQUE TO ANATOLIA The roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) is a wild animal that prefers to live in beech, birch or hornbeam forests and meadowlands, its habitat in Turkey being the coastal forests of Thrace and the Black Sea region. With their enormous ears and beautiful, highly sensitive eyes, these animals can run swiftly even in snow or dense brush. The forests of the western Black Sea and the Marmara and Aegean regions are protected areas for deer. Spotted yellow in color with short, palmate antlers, fallow deer (Cervus dama) are the most graceful and elegant of this entire mammal species. Once boasting a large population in the forests of Manavgat and Adana-Catalan, they are now rarely seen there. A hundred or so fallow deer are struggling to survive in Antalya's Duzlercami forest. The wild sheep (Ovis gmelinii anatolica), which is unique to Turkey, is the sole member of its species. The females are hornless, a trait which makes them the acknowledged ancestor of the domestic sheep. Wild sheep, which inhabit open terrain and steppes, live in a protected area at Bozdag in Konya province. The Persian wild sheep (Ovis gmelinii gmelinii) meanwhile is found in very small numbers in the mountains of Agri, Van and Hakkari near the border with Iran. Among the mammals there is one wild animal, the red goat (Capra aegrarus), which manages to survive with ease, thanks to its habitat in very steep and rocky terrain. The curved horn mountain goat (Rupicara rupicara) is not so fortunate however. These goats, which generally inhabit the higher elevations of forests, survive only in the mountains of Tunceli and Erzincan. WHERE HAVE ALL THE LEOPARDS GONE? Predators like the cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus), the lion (Panthera leo) and the striped hyena (Hyaena hyaena) once inhabited the plains of Urfa near the border with Syria, a landscape reminiscent of Africa. By the end of the 19th century only the latter survived and then only in small numbers. They too are now battling extinction in the isolated rock canyons and deep valleys of the Mediterranean and Southeastern Anatolia. But the real blow levelled against the hyena, whose numbers have diminished due to unregulated hunting, was the poisonous meat left by nomads to protect their sheep from marauding wolves. The wolves (Canis lupus) and hyenas that consumed this meat suffered a rapid decline in numbers; yet Turkey remains home to one of Europe's largest and healthiest wolf populations. Over 7000 wolves are thought to inhabit the country's steppes and mountainous regions. Red foxes (Vulpes vulpes) and jackals (Canis aureus) also inhabit Turkey in large numbers. While foxes are encountered almost all over the country, jackals are found in forested and marshy areas along the shores of rivers, lakes and the sea in the Marmara, Aegean and Mediterranean regions. Turkey's last tiger is said to have been hunted in 1970 in Uludere township of Sirnak province, and the last Anatolian leopard in Ankara-Beypazari in 1974. It is also uncertain whether the Caspian tiger (Panthera tigris virgata), the largest of the carnivorous cats, survives in Turkey or not, although close to twenty Anatolian leopards (Panthera pardus tulliana) are stil thought to inhabit the country. Lynxes are the most prized of the cats that, in small numbers, are waging a desperate struggle to survive. Usually preferring rocky or forested areas far from human habitation, they are encountered in the forests of the Black Sea, Istranca and Eastern Anatolia, and in forests and thickets in the steep rock cliffs of the Marmara and Mediterranean regions. Grizzly bears (Ursus arctos), meanwhile, which inhabit remote mountainous areas where humans never tread, make their home mainly in the Black Sea region and the forests of Eastern Anatolia as well as in areas remote to human settlement in Southeastern Anatolia and the Marmara region. Another wild animal that is waging a struggle to survive in the Southeast is the Persian gazelle (Gazella subgutturosa), famous for its slender legs, delicate antlers and dark eyes outlined in black. Efforts are under way to breed this graceful animal, whose numbers are now so small as to be almost non-existent, in a protected area appropriately named Ceylanpinar (Gazelle Spring). TIME IS RUNNING OUT The dormouse is a rare species of the Rodent (Gliridae) family whose preferred habitats are the old oak forests, fruit orchards, thickets and riverbanks of Thrace and Canakkale. The Turkish name of this animal, 'yediuyur' (literally 'seven sleeps'), derives from its seven-month hibernation period from mid-October to mid-April. Yet another wild animal that survives in Anatolia is the wild boar (Sus scrofa). Wild boars, which stir up the earth and eat harmful insects, thereby contributing to the healthy development of forests, multiply very rapidly, which also makes them a major source of food for predatory mammals. Turkey's wildlife is of course not limited to those enumerated above. There is the porcupine (Hystrix indica), which inhabits the mountains of the Mediterranean and Southeastern Anatolia; the Egyptian mongoose (Herpestes ichneumon), which drags its long, hairy brown tail on the ground; the desert monitor (Varanus griseus), Turkey's largest species of lizard, which is more than a meter long, can run 60 km per hr and is encountered in very small numbers only in the sand flats of Urfa, and more. But time is running out. Wild animals in nature are declining in number. The General Directorate of Hunting and Wildlife and the various environmental protection organizations are developing projects to protect and breed these animals. But they nevertheless face a constant threat of extinction due to illegal hunting and loss of habitat as well as death by poisoning. Wildlife will only continue to survive in Turkey's mountains, forests and steppes to the extent that we can persuade people that it is an important part of nature and that it will not threaten human food sources as long as we do not upset the natural balance. ------------------------------------------------- |
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