You may remember our “Leopard Shield”, a keen young cattle rancher in northern Iran who had a background in hunting game. But now, thanks to our generous donors, he has become the first Leopard Shield in Iran, with a new job: protecting leopards and their prey in a forest area near his home. It is now almost a year since he joined our crew.

A few days ago he had quite a shock: one of his bulls was attacked by a leopard in his backyard while he was out on his daily anti-poaching patrol. By the time Leopard Shield found the carcass in the forest the leopard had consumed much of the bull. Later that day, when he returned to deploy a camera trap near the kill, he was suddenly faced with two brown bears which were attracted to the carcass by their acute sense of smell.

In northern Iran, it is quite common when we deploy camera traps on leopard kills for brown bears to show up. It is not altogether clear, however, whether they can successfully out-compete leopards when it comes to a critical source of survival, like food. Meanwhile, Leopard Shield has lost no time in applying for compensation from an ongoing leopard insurance program.