The Arabian leopard (Panthera pardus nimr) is a leopard subspecies native to the Arabian Peninsula. It has been listed as Critically Endangered as fewer than 200 wild individuals were estimated to be alive. The Arabian Leopard is the smallest member of the leopard family. Its top weight of about 30 kilograms is half that of its African cousin.
Right now it is impossible to estimate with much accuracy how many of the leopards remain in the wild. Because past statistics on leopard populations do not exist, modern researchers cannot reconstruct the historical distribution and status of the animal with sufficient detail.
Since 1970, however, the leopard’s occupied range has contracted from ~988,300 square kilometers to ~7,400 square kilometers.
Arabian leopard is classified as “critically endangered.” It is all but extinct in the wild.
Only a handful of the magnificent animals are thought to survive in the whole Arabian Peninsula, holding out in a last refuge in Oman’s Dhofar mountains.
In Saudi Arabia, where, for generations, the animal and its prey were hunted and its habitat steadily eroded by human expansion and development, the leopard is feared to be extinct.
The beauty of saving the big cats is that they stand at the top of the pyramid in terms of the food chain.
Oman remains the only country with a verifiable population living in the wild. Muscat may take a leading role in their protection.
Economic or residential developments within existing leopard habitats will all but ensure their extinction in the near future.
Panthera pardus nimr, is a leopard subspecies native to the Arabian Peninsula, considered the smallest and rarest of the leopard subspecies. The leopards are distinguished by their small size; the largest among them weigh less than 30 kilograms (66 pounds), less than half of their African and Asian counterparts. Unfortunately, the Arabian leopard is considered to be critically endangered; due to widespread loss of their natural habitat and illegal hunting, fewer than 200 animals remain in the wild and are scattered across Saudi Arabia, Oman and Yemen.
Leopards, along with lions and cheetahs, lived in this very place for millennia before they lost the fight for living space with aggressive humans.
The leopard was already rare in Saudi Arabia by the 1960s. The last confirmed sighting in the Kingdom was in 2014, when a video was posted on video hosting of a leopard that had been poisoned by a farmer in the Wadi Numan area of Makkah.
Years of unregulated hunting have depleted the ibex and gazelle populations—the two most critical sources of prey for the leopard. This factor, perhaps more than any other, has caused the rapid decline in leopard population.
While Arabian leopards also feed on smaller prey, the ecosystem remains unbalanced due to overhunting, habitat loss, fragmentation, and retaliatory killings. These factors continue to drive the impending extinction of many wild cat species across the world, and the Arabian leopard is no exception.
Preservation efforts face another significant challenge: the genetic depletion of the small isolated populations living around the Arabian Peninsula.
An assessment of genetic diversity using a suite of microsatellite markers indicated that the Arabian leopard population is genetically impoverished in comparison to other leopard subspecies.
Ultimately, saving the Arabian leopard will prove to be a significant challenge—not least because its habitat is spread over three countries, one of which is embroiled in a fierce civil war.
There is a pressing reason to evacuate Yemeni leopards from their historical habitats: the country’s ongoing war and ever-deteriorating security situation. The conflict threatens to wreak further ecological devastation upon any Arabian leopards in the country. Very few, if any, of Yemen’s leopards have survived the conflict.
Known locally in the Dhofar Mountains as ‘Qadr, these endangered animals are active mostly at night due to relatively cooler temperatures, with their spotted markings varying from one leopard to another.
Arabian leopards are mainly nocturnal but may sometimes be active in daylight. In general, leopards are solitary animals. They maintain home ranges that usually overlap with each other. Thus, a male's home range can often overlap with the territories of multiple females. Females live with their cubs in home ranges that overlap extensively and continue to interact with their offspring even after weaning; females may even share kills with their offspring when they can not obtain any prey. Leopards usually hunt on the ground and depend mainly on their acute senses of hearing and vision for hunting. They stalk their prey and try to approach it as closely as possible, typically within 5 m (16 ft) of the target, and, finally, pounce on it and kill it by suffocation. Leopards are known to be excellent climbers and often rest on tree branches during the day, dragging their kills up trees and hanging them there, and descending from trees headfirst. Leopards are also powerful swimmers. They are very agile and can run at over 58 km per hour (36 mph), leap over 6 m (20 ft) horizontally, and jump up to 3 m (9.8 ft) vertically. They produce a number of vocalizations, including grunts, roars, growls, meows, and purrs.
Leopards are top predators within their natural habitat and play a very important role in the local ecosystem by controlling the numbers and health of their prey species.
The Arabian leopard's fur varies from pale yellow to deep golden, tawny, or grey and is patterned with rosettes. It is smaller than both African and Persian leopards. However, it is the largest cat in the Arabian Peninsula.
Arabian leopards are threatened by habitat loss, degradation, and fragmentation; prey depletion caused by unregulated hunting; trapping for the illegal wildlife trade and retaliatory killing in defense of livestock. The leopard population has decreased drastically in Arabia as shepherds and villagers kill leopards in retaliation for attacks on livestock. In addition, the hunting of leopard prey species such as hyrax and ibex by local people and habitat fragmentation, especially in the Sarawat Mountains, made the continued survival of the leopard population uncertain. Other reasons for killing these rare animals are personal satisfaction and pride, traditional medicine, and hides. Some leopards are killed accidentally when eating poisoned carcasses intended for Arabian wolves and Striped hyenas.
According to official estimates there are less than 200 mature individuals. The actual number of live Arabian leopards may be much less than official data. The numbers are declining with a tendency towards extinction.
Saving endangered species such as the Arabian leopard is critical to the protection of our planet and the natural balance of our ecosystem.
What do you think should be done already today to ensure the survival of a unique felid species?