Join Shepreth Wildlife Park as we aim to raise £1000 in order to train anti-poaching units in Nepal!

Clouded Leopards suffer from a lot of the same threats as Sumatran Tigers do in the wild. The biggest threat facing them, sadly, is being poached for their fur and for their body parts, which fetch a high price on the black market for traditional Asian medicine. The poaching industry is still very prevalent in many parts of Asia, and carnivores such as the Clouded Leopard, are often the most targeted animals, alongside Tigers. Their pelts and teeth are seen as decorative pieces – often being sold across to China, and one study has even found that live Clouded Leopards are the 2nd. most traded wild cat in the world for the pet trade – after the fishing cat.

Nepal, in theory, is one of the strictest countries in Asia when it comes to laws on smuggling animals or animal parts, with upto 15 years prison sentence and upto 1 million Nepalese Rupees fine for being caught – however this punishment has yet to be enacted, even to those caught trading animal parts.

The Clouded Leopard Working Group are working hard to tackle conservation from many different angles, including a community-driven approach, which seeks to support and empower local communities that surround Clouded Leopard habitat. This includes training local residents to dismantle snares left by poachers, patrol areas and collect data that could be vital in understanding more about numbers of Cloudies. This training, coupled with the CLWG’s work on increasing livelihoods that aren’t related to wildlife poaching, means that the human neighbours of the Clouded Leopard can end up being their biggest defence.

With £1000, four anti-poaching units can be trained to monitor Clouded Leopard habitat and protect not only them, but also other cat species that may be at risk of being poached, such as the Asiatic Golden Cat and the Marbled Cat.

The team at the Clouded Leopard Working Group are visiting the UK on March 20th and we'd love to present them with a cheque to help meet their conservation goals. Help us help them to train the future anti-poaching units of Nepal! We have two months to raise as much as we can, please consider helping us with this important and valuable work."

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