'Rare clouded leopard sighting in Tawau a call for greater conservation efforts'

A rare sighting of the Sunda clouded leopard in Tawau Hills on Wednesday is a call for relevant agencies to ramp up protection for the vulnerable species, conservation group 1Stop Borneo Wildlife said.

The Sunda clouded leopard (Neofelis diardi) is deemed one of the rarest and least studied carnivores in Borneo due to its elusive nature. Only about 750 are left in Sabah.

1Stop Borneo Wildlife founder Shavez Cheema and president Chun Xin Wong spotted the animal on Wednesday night during a routine walk, the first such sighting for the two conservationists who have done about 20 night walks a month in the area for the past four years.

“This sighting means they are still out there. Agencies like the Sabah Parks, Forestry and Wildlife Departments are trying their best to conserve them, and this means more needs to be done,” Shavez told Malaysiakini.

Shavez said the leopard was calm and did not show signs of feeling threatened, indicating it had not had previous bad encounters with humans.

This is a positive sign, he said, because poaching is among the top threats for the clouded leopard, despite it being a fully protected species in Malaysia.

“We were doing our night walk to look for wildlife as usual when we saw this sexy thing’s tail, nothing else.

“We waited and it came in front of us. It kept doing its thing, hunting along the stream and went in circles before sitting on top of a little hill about five metres from us, for 30 minutes. It wasn’t scared of us at all,” Shavez said.

'Eco-tourism may protect the leopard from poachers'

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) deems the species vulnerable, due to its rapidly decreasing population, with an estimated 4,500 left in the world.

The species is only found in Sabah, Sarawak and in Kalimantan, Indonesia.

Shavez said the sighting also showed the importance of eco-tourism in conservation.

As more companies organise night walks in areas like Tawau Hills, tourists and guides can act as rangers to monitor the status of wildlife in reserves.

“Hunters don’t want to use the same roads or be in the same area as visitors.

“The clouded leopard is the most elusive cat one can see in the wild and because of responsible travel companies and government agencies, the chances of sighting them are increasing, especially in places where there are many organised night drives, such as Deramakot, Danum, Tabin and Tawau Hills.

“Perhaps this is also one way to help the Malayan Tiger - to do more night drives to search for them. There is no harm trying!” Shavez said.

He added that data from sightings on eco-tourism trips are often recorded and shared with scientists.

For instance, 1Stop Borneo Wildlife, which also runs eco-tourism trips, maintains its own database of sightings and works with the Borneo Carnivore Programme and Sabah Parks, Shavez said.

Oil palm plantations a threat

Most photographs of the clouded leopard in the wild are from camera traps, while the Danau Girang Field Centre has managed to place tracking collars on six wild leopards thus far.

The data from these collars showed that, among others, the leopards do not like moving through areas that are not covered by the forest canopy, making rapid fragmentation of the forest in Sabah by palm oil plantations a problem for the survival of this species.

“Habitat loss due to commercial logging and conversion to oil palm plantations, as well as the increasing threat from poaching, pose the greatest threats to the Sunda clouded leopard.

“Oil palm plantations are likely to expand in the future, as a result of the push for biofuels. The forest cover on the island of Borneo, if the current deforestation rates continue, is projected to decline from 50 percent to less than one-third by 2020,” the IUCN said.

The Sunda clouded leopard is fully protected in Malaysia and anyone found guilty of poaching the animal can be fined RM50,000 or be sentenced to up to five years’ jail.

Besides being killed for its skin and body parts, the clouded leopard is also sold as an exotic pet.

In 2015, a man in Kota Kinabalu was given the maximum fine for being in possession of a clouded leopard, which he bought through a secret Facebook group. - Mkini

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