Global Courant
Hong-Kong
CNN
—
The Indochinese leopard is perilously close to extinction in Cambodia, according to wildcat conservationists, who spent more than a decade searching for the creatures and only found 35.
According to a report by pantheraa global wildcat conservation organization, researchers set up hundreds of cameras in two protected areas in Cambodia’s eastern plains landscape between 2009 and 2019.
During that period, they saw only 35 adult Indochinese leopards, and when they returned in 2021, not a single leopard was seen.
That led the scientists to conclude that the species was no longer viable to reproduce for the next generation, according to the report, compiled with Oxford University’s WildCRU and published in Biological Conservation.
Historically, the Indochinese leopard was found all over Indochina – spread across Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and parts of southeastern China – but almost all of the area they once roamed has disappeared due to human encroachment.
During the period of the study, human activity in Cambodia rose 20-fold and the chance of getting caught in deadly traps increased 1,000-fold, the report said.
Poaching in the region is driven by a high demand for wild meat, which is considered a delicacy or status symbol by Cambodia’s middle and upper-class urban consumers, the report said.
Hunters also target the feral cats for their thick, spotted fur, and habitat loss has drastically reduced the leopard’s prey population.
The World Wide Fund estimates there are some 12 million snares spread across eastern Indochina, harming 700 mammal species in the region, including the Asian elephant and Sumatran rhinoceros.
Cambodia, ruled by Prime Minister Hun Sen for more than three decades, has long suffered from entrenched corruption. Transparency International ranks it 150 out of 180 countries in its annual Corruptions Perceptions Index, towards the bottom of the table.
The Southeast Asian country has also experienced some of the highest deforestation rates of any nation since the 1970s, according to the Global Forest Watch, which estimates Cambodia lost about 557,000 hectares of tree cover in protected areas between 2001 and 2018.
Activists often risk their lives to protect Cambodia’s forests, and in 2022 five journalists covering a massive deforestation operation in southern Cambodia were forcibly arrested. according to Reporters Without Borders.
No consolidated conservation initiative targeting Indochinese leopards exists due to a lack of funding, and despite stepped-up anti-poaching law enforcement by local authorities over the past decade, the scale of the illegal wildlife trade is unprecedented, the report said.
“Without the injection of swift resources by the global community to prevent the Indochinese leopard from disappearing in the last two remaining strongholds, we will lose this unique subspecies from the planet forever,” said Susana Rostro-García, Panthera conservation scientist and lead author of the report. .
While leopards are disappearing from Cambodia, their numbers in the wild along the Thailand-Myanmar border are unknown and probably fewer than 900, Rostro-García added.
Gareth Mann, director of Panthera’s panther program, said: “It is disheartening to see the long-overlooked leopard following the same fate as the tiger in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam.”
Punishing hunters alone is not enough to end wildlife loss, as researchers called for nationwide efforts to proactively reduce game meat consumption.
“Just as Indochina now serves as ground zero for tiger poaching and protection, it is also where the global and conservation community must fully invest our efforts to save the leopard, hand-in-hand with the governments of Thailand, Malaysia and Myanmar. .”
The leopard species is listed as “Vulnerable” on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Specieswhile the Indochinese leopard subspecies is classified as “critically endangered”.
