Wildlife of Turkey

Turkey is a large country with many geographic and climatic regions and a great diversity of plants and animals, each suited to its own particular habitat.

The climate of Turkey also varies, with the weather systems found near the coasts contrasting with those prevailing in the interior.

The interior of the country has a continental climate with severe weather on the Anatolian plateau in winter and hot, dry summers.

The ecoregions here include Balkan mixed forests dominated by oaks,[6] and Aegean and Western Turkey sclerophyllous and mixed forests where some of the main species are oaks, strawberry tree, Greek strawberry tree, Spanish broom and laurel.

[8] Further east is the Anatolian plateau, a largely treeless area of plains and river basins at an average altitude of 1,000 m (3,300 ft).

Immediately around the large Lake Tuz and other saline areas, saltmarsh plants grow, and beyond this is a sharp divide, with the flora being dominated by members of the families Chenopodiaceae and Plumbaginaceae.

In other words: Anatolia as a whole is a big “massif de refuge”, showing all degrees of past and recent speciation.

[13] Threats to biodiversity include desertification due to climate change in Turkey,[14] which is forecast to move the ecoregions northwards,[15] and large scale infrastructure projects such as those near Istanbul.

[20] Turkey enforced the Berne Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats from 1999,[21] but according to one study laws and legal decisions still had some deficiencies in 2019, especially regarding migratory species and international coordination.

[25] In 2020 it was suggested that more use of remote sensing and citizen science could help to make the first complete map of the nation's land cover.