Journal of Threatened Taxa | www.threatenedtaxa.org | 26 June 2023 | 15(6): 23441–23445

ISSN 0974-7907 (Online) | ISSN 0974-7893 (Print)

https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.8425.15.6.23441-23445

#8425 | Received 27 February 2023 | Finally accepted 29 May 2023

Dark Clouds Ahead? Anecdotal evidence for an illegal live trade in Sunda Neofelis diardi and Indochinese N. nebulosa Clouded Leopards (Mammalia: Carnivora: Felidae)

Anthony J. Giordano ¹, Leah M. Winstead ², Muhammad Ali Imron ³, Rustam ⁴ , Jephte Sompud ⁵, Jayaraj Vijaya Kumaran ⁶ & Kurtis Jai-Chyi Pei ⁷

^1,2,3,4,6,7 S.P.E.C.I.E.S. – The Society for the Preservation of Endangered Carnivores and their International Ecological Study, Ventura, CA, USA.

³ Department of Forest Resource Conservation, Faculty of Forestry, Universitas Gadjah, Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

⁴ Wildlife Ecology and Biodiversity Laboratory, Faculty of Forestry, Mulawarman University, Samarinda, East Kalimantan, Indonesia.

⁵ Agroforestry and Forest Plantation Program, Faculty of Tropical Forestry, Universiti Malaysia Sabah, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia.

⁶ Faculty of Earth Science, Jeli Campus, Universiti Malaysia Kelantan, Kelantan, Malaysia.

⁷ Institute of Wildlife Conservation, College of Veterinary Medicine, National Pingtung University of Science and Technology, Pingtung, Taiwan.

¹ species1@hotmail.com, ² leah.m.winstead@gmail.com (corresponding author), ³ maimron@ugm.ac.id, ⁴ rustam@fahutan.unmul.ac.id, ⁵ jephte@ums.edu.my, ⁶ jayaraj@umk.edu.my, ⁷ kcjpei@mail.npust.edu.tw

Editor: Anonymity requested. Date of publication: 26 June 2023 (online & print)

Citation: Giordano, A.J., L.M. Winstead, M.A. Imron, Rustam, J. Sompud, J.V. Kumaran & K.J-C. Pei (2023). Dark Clouds Ahead? Anecdotal evidence for an illegal live trade in Sunda Neofelis diardi and Indochinese N. nebulosa Clouded Leopards (Mammalia: Carnivora: Felidae). Journal of Threatened Taxa 15(6): 23441–23445. https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.8425.15.6.23441-23445

Copyright: © Giordano et al. 2023. Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. JoTT allows unrestricted use, reproduction, and distribution of this article in any medium by providing adequate credit to the author(s) and the source of publication.

Funding: No funding provided outside of S.P.E.C.I.E.S.

Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.

Acknowledgements: We would like to acknowledge Debbie Banks and the Environmental Investigation Agency for providing feedback and access to EIA’s collected data relevant to this project.

The Sunda Clouded Leopard Neofelis diardi and Indochinese Clouded Leopard N. nebulosa are medium-sized felids native to tropical southern and southeastern Asia. The only two extant members of their genus, both species exhibit morphological adaptations consistent with arboreality (Van Valkenburgh 1987; Hubbard et al. 2009) and share a common ancestry with other extant pantherine felids (Johnson et al. 2006). Collectively, clouded leopards occur from Nepal east to Vietnam and south through the Indo-Malay Archipelago (N. nebulosa) into Sumatra and Borneo (N. diardi) (Hearn et al. 2015; Grassman et al. 2016). Both species were historically treated as a single phenotypically variable species until recently, when closer molecular and morphological scrutiny yielded evidence of two distinct species (Buckley-Beason et al. 2006; Kitchener et al. 2006).

Clouded leopards primarily inhabit tropical forests across their range, particularly lowland dipterocarp forests. Limestone forests, upland tropical evergreen and deciduous forest, lowland seasonal and mixed deciduous forest, and peat swamp forests (Rabinowitz et al. 1987; Rabinowitz 1988; Rabinowitz & Walker 1991) are also considered suitable habitats. They appear able to persist in fragmented, isolated forests, and forests where selective logging occurs (Mohd-Azlan & Lading 2006; Brodie & Giordano 2012; Brodie et al. 2015). Though their prey has never been investigated in detail, it is likely that clouded leopards prey largely upon ungulates, and primates both on the ground and in the canopy; data gathered anecdotally thus far at least supports this (Matsuda et al. 2008; Morino 2010; Giordano & Rustam 2016; Giordano 2022). Threats to the survival of both species include deforestation, particularly for oil palm, indiscriminate poaching via snaring, and intentional hunting for illegal trade in skins and parts (Hearn et al. 2015; Grassman et al. 2016; Giordano 2022). Both are CITES Appendix I species, with international trade in live animals or their parts prohibited without explicit official permission by the governments of range countries. They are protected legally from hunting by national wildlife legislation across their range.

In 2019, we began an investigation of the trade in clouded leopards and their parts in Asia. This was partly inspired by social media posts we discovered of a live Sunda Clouded Leopard apparently kept by an exotic pet dealer (Image 1). Our online investigations continued with respect to how and where clouded leopards are sold on social media and other digital platforms, irrespective of laws and policies prohibiting such activities. Although these investigations are still ongoing, we discovered more than one-half dozen social media posts and local language news articles, that we believe are indicative of an illegal live trade in Sunda Clouded Leopards in Indonesia (Image 2a,b). In addition, also discovered at least one older incident that involved young Indochinese Clouded Leopards (Image 3) originating from the Lao PDR, which were confiscated along the national borders of Thailand and Myanmar. Several of these incidents were supported or accompanied by photos of a clouded leopard in a small cage, consistent with those often used at markets, or at a post-confiscation publicity event coordinated by law enforcement for the media. Our work expands somewhat on an aspect of D’Cruze & Macdonald (2015), which highlighted records of live trade in clouded leopards as exotic pets, and possibly for exotic food dishes (e.g., IUCN SSC Cat Specialist Group 1987). Their data also highlighted the changing trends in CITES records of the ‘purpose’ of live-traded clouded leopards over several decades. They further characterized a major shift toward ‘commercial use’, which constituted more than half of all trade in the decade and a half leading up to 2013. Our work therefore expands somewhat on D’Cruze & Macdonald (2015) and provides new evidence of the species allegedly for illegal sale as an exotic pet on social media.

New evidence of live trade in other carnivores from Indonesia, and possibly Malaysia, has also emerged recently, and can provide further context for a possible emerging live trade in Sunda Clouded Leopards. Some species for which fewer historical records of trade exists, for example, such as ‘Vulnerable’ Small-clawed Otters Aonyx cinereus and Smooth-coated Otters Lutrogale perspicillata (de Silva et al. 2015; Wright et al. 2015), are among those species recently identified as threatened by increased live trade (Gomez & Bouhuys 2018). This appears in large part to be driven by their popularity and portrayal as pets on social media (Harrington et al. 2019). Similarly, the Otter Civet Cynogale bennettii, a small ‘Endangered’ viverrid (Ross et al. 2015) also native to southeastern Asia, was recently observed for sale on an Indonesian Facebook group (Bouhuys 2019), the first known report for the species. Live trade in all carnivores across the region, including mongoose, ferret badgers, and civets (Shepherd 2012; Nijman et al. 2014) has largely been unregulated to date, and many species appear to be increasing in popularity as ‘novelty pets’ (Bouhuys 2019). Changes in the demand for different species are known to occur through time, as evidenced by Indonesia’s primate markets (Nijman et al. 2015). Such patterns, particularly as influenced by social media, may have implications for future live trade in Sunda Clouded Leopards. Interestingly, other than the one record we present of two live Indochinese Clouded Leopards, we uncovered few unequivocal records of live trade in the species, whether as pets or otherwise. Given however there exists evidence of larger felids like leopards and tigers kept locally as pets in the region, including in Myanmar (Min 2020), it is possible we just haven’t yet uncovered adequate evidence supporting more widespread live trade in Indochinese Clouded Leopards. In contrast to the live pet trade in cheetahs in the Middle East (Tricorache et al. 2018; Spee et al. 2019), the cultural origins of which may relate to their historical use for hunting other prey (Masseti 2009), some live trade in Sunda Clouded Leopards could be related to local opportunistic hunting, which appears widespread on Borneo (Mohd-Azlan et al. 2017). The incidental killings of mother Clouded Leopards for example, could pave the way to more opportunities for selling kittens or cubs at regional markets. Regardless of the pathway to the marketplace, there is real concern that social media activity risks normalizing the keeping of threatened and endangered species as exotic pets (Moloney et al. 2020), and thus the expansion of potential markets.

We recommend that additional international attention and investment of resources, including local, national, and international law enforcement activities, focus their efforts on the growing trade in clouded leopards. We further note that the potential threats to human safety in the trafficking of live animals in the form of disease, particularly given the potential of cats and other carnivores to facilitate transmission of coronaviruses (Bell et al. 2004; Matharvarajah & Dellaire 2020), should further serve as incentive to end all illegal trade in these species.

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