Lesser spotted leopards in peril

ENDANGERED SPECIES

- VANESSA AMOROSO

In light of Saturday's International Leopard Day, we need to raise an urgent question: How long can we "celebrate" an event that now marks a countdown to the day these majestic creatures go extinct and become a thing of the past?

Across Africa, the Middle East and Asia, leopards have lost nearly 75% of their natural habitat. Leopards that are still born in the wild are also threatened by the brutal poaching that is all too rife in the region. Meanwhile, those bred in questionable facilities solely exist to be traded like commodities across the world — alive or their body parts used as trophies, luxury items or traditional medicine.

If you can’t get a tiger, you go for a leopard — the growing international demand in Southeast Asia for tigers has led to other big cats, like leopards, paying the price for their popularity.

This convergence shows that leopards are increasingly being targeted by poachers, breeders and wildlife traffickers. It has been reported that some tiger bones, teeth and other body parts that are traded do in fact not belong to tigers but to other big cat species.