It has caused alarming damage to the populations of Asiatic wild ass, goitered gazelle, urial and bezoar goat until recently. Leopards have been persecuted in retribution for damage to livestock, at least until the 1990s. Overexploitation, which is mainly through illegal hunting, affects more than 75 per cent of the IBAs of Turkmenistan, so that it is a major pressure on wild birds in the country.