Carnivore and ungulate populations in the Beydaglari Mountains (Antalya, Turkey) : border region between Asia and Europe

Abstract

Turkey is being a bridge be- tween Europe and Asia and it provides the natu- ral pathway for the spread of species between these continents. The Beydaglari Mountains and its surroundings (Antalya) host many Asian, European and Mediterranean faunal and floral elements and the location, which is considered as one of the most important faunal areas in Turkey especially for larger mammals. The study is the first systematic survey of the carnivores in the region which is based on photo trapping. The cameras were set at 45 locations for 2055 trap days between 2005-2009 over the area 294 km 2 at the altitude 1200-2000 m a.s.l. Most of the species and their individual abundance were recorded in maquis habitat type followed by red pine forest, mixed (red pine and maquis), and cedar forest respectively. The wild animals that were captured included five mammalian carni- vore species (red fox Vulpes vulpes, badger Meles meles, stone marten Martes foina, gray wolf Ca- nis lupus and caracal Caracal caracal) and also wild boar Sus scrofa, fallow deer Dama dama and hare Lepus europaeus. Photo trapping ac- tivity was mostly recorded between 21:00 and 03:00 hours. Wild terrestrial carnivores occur at low densities in the study area (1.73 for caracal and 0.9 for wolf ind.100 km -2 ) while the most widespread larger mammal was the wild boar (188 ind.100 km -2 ). The small fallow deer popu- lation was mainly confined in a large (4.2 km 2 ) fenced enclosure and its size was accessed by direct drive count. The results support the hy- pothesis that Beydaglari Mountains having the Asian, European and Mediterranean mammals makes the Anatolian Peninsula being a bridge between Europe and Asia. Caracal density was lower than the Datca population in the southern part of Anatolia. This may be consequence of higher human activities in the Beydaglari Mts. Human activities in the Beydaglari Mts. should be reduced for sensitive animals to human ac- tivities like caracal and wolf and the illegal hunt- ing should be strictly prohibited in the area for viability of the large mammals of Beydaglari Mts.