LEOPARD

Leopards are widely distributed across Africa and Asia, but populations have become reduced and isolated, and they are now extirpated from large portions of their historic range. Due to their wide geographic range, secretive nature and habitat tolerance, Leopards are difficult to categorize as a single species. Evidence suggests that Leopard populations have been dramatically reduced due to continued persecution with increased human populations (Thorn et al. 2013, Selvan et al. 2014), habitat fragmentation (UN 2014), increased illegal wildlife trade (Datta et al. 2008), excessive harvesting for ceremonial use of skins (G. Balme pers. comm. 2015), prey base declines (Hatton et al. 2001, du Toit 2004, Fusari and Carpaneto 2006, Datta et al. 2008, Lindsey et al. 2014, Selvan et al. 2014) and poorly managed trophy hunting (Balme et al. 2009). Throughout North, East and West Africa, Middle East, East and South-east Asia, Leopards have suffered marked reductions and regional extirpations due to poaching for illegal wildlife trade, habitat loss and fragmentation, and prey loss. Human populations have increased by 2.57 percent annually from 1994 to 2014 (UN 2014) driving a 57% increase in the conversion of potential Leopard habitat to agricultural areas from 1975 to 2000 (Brink and Eva 2009). Deforestation in South-east Asia has increased for palm oil and rubber plantations (Sodhi et al. 2010, Miettinen et al. 2011). These factors were not incorporated in the previous assessment and likely have a substantial impact on suitable Leopard range. Comparison of the extent of extant range presented in this assessment (8,515,935 km², see map) with that produced by Red List Assessors in 2007 (21,953,435 km²: Henschel et al. 2008) yields a range reduction of 61%. However the severity of this reduction is inaccurate due to previous insufficient sampling (the 2016 map is much more detailed in resolution, see Methodology in the Supplementary Material), and the reduction has likely occurred over a longer time scale. Though our knowledge of the Leopard distribution is better today than in 2008, it is still limited at the national, regional and range-wide scales because reliable data on Leopard population trends are missing from large portions of their range. We suspect, however, that at least half of the reduction translates to real and relatively recent range loss. Also in southern Africa, the so called stronghold of the Leopard, there is no evidence to suggest that Leopard populations have remained stable (G. Balme pers. comm. 2015). In Zimbabwe, much Leopard range has disappeared due to the resettlement of private farmland and subsequent loss of prey populations (du Toit 2004). We estimate regional range loss of approximately 21% in southern Africa. We suspect that suitable Leopard range has been reduced by >30% worldwide in the last three generations (22.3 years). We calculated generation length as 7.42 years (based on the formula presented in Pacifici et al. 2013 and data from wild Leopard populations presented in Balme et al. 2013). Leopard population density across the species’ range is known to track the biomass of principle Leopard prey species, medium-size and large wild herbivores (Marker and Dickman 2005, Hayward et al. 2007). Prey species are increasingly under threat from an unsustainable bushmeat trade, leading to collapses in prey populations across large parts of savanna Africa (Lindsey et al. 2013). A commercialized bushmeat trade has caused an estimated 59% average decline in Leopard prey populations across 78 protected areas in West, East and southern Africa between 1970 and 2005 (Craigie et al. 2010). Though ungulate populations have increased by 24% in southern Africa, potential prey numbers have declined by 52% in East Africa and 85% in West Africa (Craigie et al. 2010). Bushmeat poaching in Mozambique (Hatton et al. 2001, Fusari et al. 2006) and Zambia (Lindsey et al. 2014) has severely reduced Leopard prey (Becker et al. 2013) inside and outside of protected areas. Many wildlife areas are suffering from substantial ungulate decline, including Zambian Game Management Areas and National Parks, maintain large mammal populations at 93.7% and 74.1% below estimated carrying capacity, respectively (Lindsey et al. 2014). With such reductions to Leopard prey, we infer a >50% loss of Leopard populations across East and West Africa. Through extensive poaching pressure also in Asia many prey species, such as Sambar Deer in Malaysia, are threatened with regional extirpation throughout tropical forest systems (Corbett 2007, Kawanishi et al. 2014). In South-east and East Asia, poaching for Leopard prey and targeted Leopard hunts for the wildlife trade market are taking place. A regional survey found that Leopards in India have been poached at a rate of four individuals per week for the illegal wildlife trade (Raza et al. 2012b). Nowell and Pervushina (2012) found the illegal trade of Leopard parts was comparable to that of Tigers in Asian range States and derivative seizures with an average of 3.5 Leopards seizure cases per month in India since 2000. Preliminary data suggest that the illegal trade in Leopard skins for cultural regalia is rampant in southern Africa. It is suggested that 4,500-7,000 Leopards area harvested annually to fuel the demand for Leopards skins by followers of the Nazareth Babtist (Shembe) Church only (Balme unpub. data). Poorly managed trophy hunting adds to pressure on local Leopard populations. Balme et al. (2009) showed that trophy hunting was a key driver of Leopard population decline prior to intervention in northern KwaZulu-Natal. Similarly, Pitman et al. (2015) demonstrated that Leopards are over-harvested across much of their range in Limpopo Province, South Africa. The concern about unsustainable trophy hunting has lately increased, e.g. South Africa has banned trophy hunting for 2016. This followed an alert by its CITES Scientific Authority that the number of Leopards in the country was unknown, and that trophy hunting posed a high risk to the survival of the species. Taken all together, the Leopard meets the A2cd criterion for Vulnerable, based on loss of habitat and prey, and exploitation. These causes of the suspected reduction are not well understood, have not ceased, and are likely to continue, and future decline is anticipated unless conservation efforts are taken. SOURCE: IUCN REDLIST