University of Utah biology professor Çağan Şekercioğlu, president of KuzeyDoğa Society, thanked Prof. Veysel Eroğlu, Minister of Forestry and Water Works, for his interest in the first wildlife corridor project of Turkey
Minister of Forestry and Water Works Prof. Eroğlu opened Bursa Karacabey Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation Center on October 5th, in honor of October 4th World Animal Day. Minister Eroğlu presented a plaque to University of Utah biology professor Dr. Çağan Şekercioğlu for his contributions. Şekercioğlu is the president of the non-governmental organization KuzeyDoğa that plays an important role in the establishment and management of the center. The Center was established in cooperation with the Ministry of Forestry and Water Works, Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Pipeline Company, Uludağ University, Second Chance Animal Rescue Society, and KuzeyDoğa Society. It is the first center in Turkey specially built for native and exotic animal treatment and rehabilitation.
In addition to the minister’s support for the rehabilitation center, Şekercioğlu also thanked Minister Eroğlu for his interest in KuzeyDoğa Society’s proposal to the ministry to create Turkey’s first wildlife corridor by connecting northeastern Turkey’s isolated protected areas and forests via reforestation to the extensive forests of the Black Sea and Caucasus Mountains of Turkey and Georgia. Following Şekercioğlu’s 2009 proposal, in early 2011 Minister Eroğlu requested the mapping and feasibility studies of Turkey’s first wildlife corridor. Turkey’s first wildlife corridor aims to connect the isolated and small (230 km2) Sarıkamış Forests-Allahuekber Mountains National Park, via other forest fragments in northeastern Anatolia, to the extensive Black Sea and Caucasus forests of Turkey and Georgia. The corridor extends for 81 km along Kars, Erzurum, Ardahan and Artvin provinces to the large forests on the border of Turkey and Georgia. If realized, Turkey’s first wildlife corridor will connect the isolated wolf, brown bear, lynx, wildcat, roe deer, and other wildlife populations in the 22,980 hectare Sarıkamış Forests-Allahuekber Mountains National Park to those in Turkey’s Karagöl-Sahara National Park and Georgia’s Akhaltsikhe-Erusheti Important Natural Area and Borjomi-Kharagauli National Park. The 81 km long and 23,533 hectare large corridor covers an area bigger than Kars’ Sarıkamış Forests-Allahuekber Mountains National Park. Because Sarıkamış-Allahuekber National Park provides inadequate natural habitat and food for large carnivores such as wolf, bear, and lynx in the long term, this corridor will help wildlife access the extensive forests of the Black Sea and Caucasus mountains. This should help mitigate the region’s human-carnivore conflict, including many bears mostly feeding on garbage and many wolves mostly feeding on livestock. Turkey’s first wildlife corridor, by reforesting the exposed ridgelines of Allahuekber Mountains and Yalnızçam Mountains, also aims to reduce erosion in the watershed of the Kura River, which has the largest catchment area of any river in Turkey (193,800 km2). A detailed map and report on the corridor was prepared through the collaboration of KuzeyDoğa society staff and the technicians from the Ministry of Forestry and Water Works. Together, the team conducted the planning, feasibility, and ground-truthing fieldwork of the entire corridor between February and June 2011. If the necessary agreements are signed, the corridor protocol will be sent to Turkey’s General Directorate of Forestry in order to be implemented by the General Directorate of Combating Erosion and Desertification.
