Leopard skinshow means trouble for cat

Soon enough, the leopard might become as endangered as the tiger is. Four leopards have been poached and their body parts entered into illegal wildlife trade every week for 10 years in India. If the trend is unchecked, the leopard too may be pushed to the brink of extinction. And, the leopard is arguably paying a collateral damage for its more precious cousin, the tiger.

As of now, almost 90 per cent of leopard seizures are that of skins. One of the reasons for the selective targeting of leopards thought of earlier was that this cat species is often prescribed as a substitute for the tiger in traditional Chinese medicine. For this reason, the seizure of body parts, too, should have been more. "This surprised us as well," said Rashid Raza, the lead author of the TRAFFIC project that has come up with the ominous findings.

With increased protection being accorded to tiger reserves, the continual demand for tiger parts in Asian and Southeast Asian countries could be badly hit. When seen in conjunction with the fact that most leopards probably are outside these habitats, leopards could be increasingly hunted down in the future and their mortality rate could skyrocket.

The clear and imminent danger to the leopard has been revealed in a TRAFFIC study “Illuminating the Blind Spot: A study on illegal trade in leopard parts in India” that has documented a total of 420 seizures of leopard skins, bones and other body parts from 209 localities in 21 out of 35 territories in India during 2001–2010. According to the TRAFFIC estimate, 1591-2697 (or, a conservative average of 2294) leopards were poached in the decade.

Raza remarked: “Even though reports of illegal trade in leopard body parts are disturbingly frequent, the level of threat to leopards in the country has previously been unrecognised, and has fallen into our collective ‘blind spot’.” He warned, "If we don't check the trend now, in a few years or maybe a couple of decades, this cat species, too, is likely to go the tiger way."

“TRAFFIC’s analysis casts new light onto the sheer scale of the illicit trade in leopard parts, which has hitherto been overshadowed by the trade in the tiger,” said Divyabhanusinh Chavda, president of WWF India and an expert in different cat species. “Without an effective strategy to assess and tackle the threats posed by illegal trade, the danger is that leopard numbers may decline rapidly as happened previously to the tiger,” he cautioned.