Such beautiful creatures

Username Taken wrote: ↑Mon Sep 12, 2016 4:16 pm ^^ Robert Zimmerman.

Bob Dylan

January 18, 2020
Leopard population in Cambodia almost wiped out, says WWF

WWF, in a report titled “Land of Cats” said that while leopards may still be roaming free in Cambodia, their numbers are scarce and are in the verge of being extinct.

It added that leopards are almost certainly extinct in the region, according to the report, underlining that the sign of extinction does not exist only in the region, but also globally.

A fifth of the world’s 36 cat species are found in a single landscape straddling Thailand and Myanmar, but they too, are under increasing threat of extinction.

The tigers, leopards, clouded leopards, Asiatic golden cats, marbled cats, jungle cats and leopard cats roam the forests of this vast landscape. It also includes the elusive fishing cat, which may also live there.

The seven, possibly eight cat species are holding on despite intense pressure from poaching for the illegal wildlife trade, habitat loss due to land clearing for agriculture, unsustainable infrastructure and retaliation for killing livestock.

No report about tigers in Cambodia, even from camera traps in the forest have been reported, but early this month, a group of forest rangers in Oddar Meanchey province had claimed that they overheard a tiger’s roar – a rare incident indicating the existence of the endangered animal.

The update was shared in a news release issued by the Ministry of Environment, adding that the roaring sound was heard in protected area of Banteay Chmar where the rangers were camping.

The rangers heard the sound in the evening and presumed the tiger was about 20 to 30 metres away from the team.

The last record of tiger being seen in Cambodia was made in November 2007 at Srepok Wildlife Sanctuary, Mondulkiri province.

An earlier report released in 2018, said that in just five years, the population density of the Indochinese leopards within a protected area in eastern Cambodia has fallen from about 3 leopards per 100 square kilometers in 2009 to 1 leopard per 100 square kilometers in 2014.
https://www.khmertimeskh.com/50680939/l ... t-says-wwf

UPDATE (Not good news):

Critically endangered Indochinese leopard now functionally extinct in Cambodia
Updated on: 22 June,2023 12:27 PM IST | Mumbai
Ranjeet Jadhav

Scientists are now issuing a grave warning of the Indochinese leopard’s impending extinction from the planet
Critically endangered Indochinese leopard now functionally extinct in Cambodia
Picture credit: Panthera

The critically endangered Indochinese leopard is now functionally extinct in Cambodia, according to a study conducted by Panthera, a global organisation dedicated to wild cat conservation, in partnership with WildCRU at Oxford University. This is shocking and devastating news for the leopard.

The study's findings, which were published by Biological Conservation, also point to the subspecies' extinction from all of eastern Indochina (including Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam). The leopard was last seen in Vietnam in the early 2000s and in Laos in 2004.

According to a press release, scientists are now issuing a grave warning of the Indochinese leopard’s impending extinction from the planet without immediate conservation funding and action in its remaining two strongholds in peninsular Malaysia and the Northern Tenasserim Forest Complex on the Thailand-Myanmar border. A lack of funding and competing species conservation priorities have largely prevented the implementation of initiatives specifically targeting the recovery and growth of the last Indochinese leopards.

The study involved a survey of two protected areas within Cambodia’s Eastern Plains Landscape and an aggregation of data from seven camera trap surveys conducted from 2009-2019.

Alarmingly, scientists found the leopard population declined by 82% over 11 years, with data suggesting 42% of the population was lost each year. An additional survey in 2021 failed to detect leopard, suggesting the species now is functionally extinct (the population is no longer viable), if not fully extirpated, from the landscape. Over the study period, a drastic increase in human activity was also found, with a 20-fold increase in human activity and a 1,000-fold increase in the encounter rate of lethal traps (e.g., wildlife snare, metal traps) despite increases in law enforcement efforts.
https://www.mid-day.com/news/world-news ... a-23293716