The Sunda Clouded Leopard, Neofelis diardi, and Indochinese Clouded Leopard, Neofelis nebulosa, are medium-sized Felids native to tropical South and Southeast Asia. The Indochinese Clouded Leopard is found from Nepal, through Southeast Asia as far east as Vietnam and south into the Malay Peninsula, while the Sunda Clouded Leopard is found on Borneo and Sumatra.
Both species are thought to be primarily arboreal, inhabiting tropical forests across their range, particularly lowland Dipterocarp forests, though limestone forests, upland tropical evergreen and deciduous forest, lowland seasonal and mixed deciduous forest, and peat swamp forest, all also appear to be suitable habitats. They can also survive to a degree in fragmented forests and forests with selective logging, but not Oil Palm plantations or similar environments. They are threatened by deforestation, indiscriminate hunting techniques such as hunting, as well as targeted hunting for their skins or other body parts. Both species are listed under Appendix I of the CITES Treaty, which bans trade in either live animals of their body-parts without a permit from the government of a country which forms part of the natural range.
In a paper published in the Journal of Threatened Taxa on 26 June 2023, Anthony Giordano and Leah Winstead of the Society for the Preservation of Endangered Carnivores and their International Ecological Study, Muhammed Ali Imron, also of the Society for the Preservation of Endangered Carnivores and their International Ecological Study, and of the Department of Forest Resource Conservation at Universitas Gadjah, Rustem, again of the Society for the Preservation of Endangered Carnivores and their International Ecological Study, and of the Wildlife Ecology and Biodiversity Laboratory at Mulawarman University, Jephte Sompud of the Agroforestry and Forest Plantation Program at the Universiti Malaysia Sabah, Jayaraj Vijaya Kumaran again of the Society for the Preservation of Endangered Carnivores and their International Ecological Study, and of the Faculty of Earth Science at the Universiti Malaysia Kelantan, and Kurtis Jai-Chyi Pei, once again of the Society for the Preservation of Endangered Carnivores and their International Ecological Study, and of the Institute of Wildlife Conservation at the National Pingtung University of Science and Technology, present the results of an investigation into the trade in Clouded Leopards, and their body parts, inspired by a social media post about a Sunda Clouded Leopard being kept by an exotic pet dealer in Indonesia in 2019.
Giordano et al. subsequently discovered a number of social media and local language news articles concerning the trade in Clouded Leopards, apparently without concern to the laws and government policies regulating this trade. On the basis of this, they believe that there is an active illegal trade in Sunda Clouded Leopards in Indonesia. A number of these reports included photographs of Clouded Leopards in small cages, of a kind often used at wildlife markets in Indonesia. They also discovered one incident involving an Indochinese Clouded Leopard, which was confiscated at the border between Thailand and Myanmar, having apparently been sourced from Laos.
Other recent studies of the trade in Clouded Leopard and wild Carnivores in general have indicated a change in the purpose for which these species are hunted, with their apparently becoming more specifically targeted for commercial reasons. Giordano et al.'s work builds upon this, providing evidence of Sunda Leopards being actively traded in Indonesia and Southeast Asia. Other species which have not historically been traded as live Animals also appear to be entering the exotic pet trade, including Small-clawed Otters, Aonyx cinereus, Smooth-coated Otters, Lutrogale perspicillata, and Otter Civets, Cynogale bennettii. This trade appears to be at least in part driven by popular social media posts depicting these Animals as interesting 'novelty pets'.
Interestingly, Giordano et al. only came a across a single instance of trade in the Indochinese Clouded Leopard. This is surprising, as there is known to be an active trade in other Felid species, such as Leopards and Tigers in Southeast Asia, and may indicate that the trade exists and has not been detected by this study.
The trade in large Felids has its origins in traditional practices in some parts of the world, for example in the Middle East, where Cheetahs have long been captured for use as hunting Animals, but the trade in Clouded Leopards in Indonesia appears to be a new development, and may be linked to opportunistic hunting. Widespread deforestation in Borneo has led to more conflict between Humans and forest species, and the killing of (aggressive) adult female Clouded Leopards could well result in kittens becoming available for trade as a biproduct. Whatever the source of the Animals being traded, their normalization as an exotic pets is clearly an additional threat to the species, as well as potentially to Humans handling them.
Giordano et al. recommend that governments and conservation organisations pay more attention to this trade, and focus more attention on monitoring and combating the illegal trade in Clouded Leopards. They also note the dangers to public health caused by the trade in exotic pets, observing that wild Felids are known to have the ability to carry a variety of infections potentially harmful to Humans, including Coronaviruses.
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