New study confirms Cambodia’s last leopards on brink of extinction

A new study has confirmed that the world's last breeding population of leopards in Cambodia is at immediate risk of extinction, having declined by 72% during a five-year period. The population represents the last remaining leopards in all of eastern Indochina - a region incorporating Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. The report is published in the Royal Society Open Science journal by Oxford University's Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU), Panthera - the global wild cat conservation organization - WWF-Cambodia, the American Museum of Natural History, and the Forestry Administration of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of Cambodia. Carried out in Cambodia's Eastern Plains Landscape, the study revealed one of the lowest concentrations of leopards ever reported in Asia, with a density of one individual per 100 square kilometres. Increased poaching, especially indiscriminate snaring for the illegal wildlife trade and bushmeat, is to blame for the dramatic decline, according to the researchers. Panthera Southeast Asia Leopard Program Coordinator and study co-author Dr Jan Kamler said: 'This population represents the last glimmer of hope for leopards in all of Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam - a subspecies on the verge of blinking out. No longer can we, as an international community, overlook conservation of this unique wild cat.