Guide
Sansarak Canyon Nature Park lies within the Gürmüzlü, Elmalı and Candarlı quarters of the İznik district of Bursa. The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry declared the ninety-eight hectares here a nature park on 20 April 2021. The canyon stands a thousand metres above sea level and runs seven kilometres; it is ninety-three kilometres from the centre of Bursa and seventeen from İznik.
Of the 497 plant taxa recorded in the park, eleven are endemic. Two of these are local endemics: Rumex bithynicus, known only from İznik and from its type locality, which takes its name from the region where it grows, and Verbascum bombyciferum, found only around İznik, Gemlik and Orhangazi.
Freshwater chub, siraz and barbel are reported in the Karasu stream from time to time. A study the ministry carried out on that stream between November 2012 and August 2013 found river blenny, several members of the carp family, stone loach, spined loach and mosquitofish in its upper reaches, and in the lower reaches river blenny, three-spined stickleback, sand smelt, Prussian carp, mosquitofish, Black Sea roach, spined loach and tubenose goby.
The wider surveys around Lake İznik recorded eight amphibian species falling into two orders and five families, and twenty-four reptile species — three tortoises and terrapins, ten lizards and eleven snakes. Fieldwork found 172 bird species in the region, belonging to sixteen orders and forty-four families, fifty of them waterbirds and 122 land birds, though only those species suited to the habitat of the canyon are to be expected here. Thirty-seven mammal species have been recorded around İznik.
The canyon is also one of the harder trekking routes in the Marmara region on which organised tours are run, and travel companies hold walks along it.
- Designated
- 20.04.2021
