Threats To Leopards

While leopards are versatile and live in habitats ranging from deserts to rain forests, their populations are declining and becoming fragmented. They have vanished from about 50% of their historic range in Asia and Africa.

Leopards face several threats. They are poached particularly for their beautiful fur coats, but also for their body parts which are used in traditional Asian medicine. They face a lack of prey, habitat loss and fragmentation, and forest fires threaten and destroy their habitat.

The Amur Leopard, a subspecies of leopards, is the world’s rarest cat. With less than 40 left in the wild, it is near extinction. Because there are so few left, they are vulnerable to the effects of inbreeding.