Just past Tiger Day (Poke: Tiger Day| 3726-5578 tigers, the basic plate of protection for all mankind), tigers are once again on the focus of discussion. While the remaining tigers still face difficulties, we hope that more and more attention and action will be taken so that the status quo does not get too bad or even improve.
This week is about to usher in another "cat day" - clouded leopard day.
Today, the clouded leopard is a rare sight throughout China, but historically, it has been widely distributed throughout China.
However, even if they hide in the inaccessible dense forest, their fate will inevitably float in the tide of history, and eventually come to the moment of peril...
01 Big cats belonging to China
Probably one of the least studied big cats in the world, the clouded leopard (Neofelis nebulosa) lives in the evergreen forests of eastern and southern Asia, so named after the large expanse of distinctive cloud-like patterns on its body. The clouded leopard is closely related to the Sunda clouded leopard, and the two were separated from the common ancestor of the cat family more than 6.4 million years ago, and are the first to differentiate among the living leopard subfamily species.
The clouded leopard is also the only type of big cat native to China, named in 1821 by the British scholar Edward Griffith based on a description of a fur from Guangzhou, and a few years later placed by the zoologist John Gray in the separate genus Neofelis due to subtle differences in skull, derived from the Latin word for "nebula," meaning "cloud mist."
Continental clouded leopard distribution range Source: IUCN
The clouded leopard is a large cat with hidden tracks, living in the tropical evergreen jungle with a closed canopy, day and night, mainly hunting at night and at dawn and dusk, its prey includes monkeys, giant squirrels, birds that move in the canopy, as well as civets, red chamois, pheasants and so on passing from the ground, in addition to researchers in Malaysia and Yunnan have also observed clouded leopards attacking large herbivores such as sambar deer.
Conventional wisdom holds that the clouded leopard can be divided into four subspecies, including the N.n. macrosceloides that inhabit the foothills of the Himalayas, in addition to the Sunda clouded leopard (N.diardi), which is generally considered to be an independent species today, and the Taiwan subspecies (N.n. macrosceloides) that inhabit the foothills of the Himalayas. brachyura), as well as the most widely distributed nominate subspecies (N.N. nebulosa) living in southern China and southeast Asia, but recent studies have shown that there is no significant subspecies differentiation of the continental clouded leopard.
Historically, the clouded leopard was widely distributed in China, and was known as "turtle leopard", "lotus leaf leopard" or "Ai leaf leopard". They are widely distributed in most areas south of the Yangtze River, including Hainan Island and Taiwan Island, which are isolated overseas.
Differences in body size between male and female clouded leopards
The differences between the sexes of the clouded leopard are obvious, and the male clouded leopard is significantly larger than the female, but generally does not exceed 25 kg.
However, in November 1991, a hunting team from Minhou County, Fujian Province, killed a huge clouded leopard in a place called Huashan Village in Songji Township, Gutian County, which weighed 35 kilograms, setting a record for the largest known weight of the clouded leopard.
The clouded leopard is called "harimau-dahan" in Malay, meaning "tiger on a branch". As a highly arboreal species, the body structure of the clouded leopard is undoubtedly extremely well adapted to the jungle environment. The stubby, powerful limbs provide great climbing ability, the long fluffy tail, which is almost as long as the body, helps to maintain balance when moving between the branches, the mottled fur is the best camouflage color of the jungle, and the 4 cm long canine teeth increase their success rate of killing in one hit when hunting.
The extinct Taiwan clouded leopard
There are 13 species of felines distributed in the wild in China, namely the "big cat" of the leopard subfamily and the "small cat" of the cat subfamily, the clouded leopard is the smallest big cat, with an average body length of 75-105 cm, a weight of about 18-23 kg, and an adult individual is about the same size as an ordinary hunting dog. Adult clouded leopards usually avoid human activities, but occasionally approach villages during food shortages, stealing poultry such as chickens, ducks and sheep.
Compared with big cat relatives such as tigers and leopards, clouded leopards rarely arouse the anger of farmers, and even in some parts of Fujian, people regard the clouded leopard entering the village as a symbol of "worshiping the house of the mountain god", which is a good thing worth celebrating with wine from neighbors and neighbors.
But today, the situation has changed dramatically, and we have to accept the sad reality that the clouded leopard has disappeared from most of China.
The former mountain gods are gradually drifting away, although there are still people's memories of the mountains and forests, and behind all this, what is happening?
02 Blood-stained robes
The root cause of the tragic fate of the Chinese clouded leopard undoubtedly comes from the luxurious and beautiful fur on their bodies.
If the whole clouded leopard skin is opened flat, the symmetrical patches on both sides look like the shape of the cloud, and they resemble the lines of the turtle's back. In the eyes of the ancients, the mysterious pattern with an indescribable charm has won the reputation of "turtle leopard" for the clouded leopard.
The clouded leopard's colorful fur is an excellent camouflage in the forest @ Raju Kasambe
As early as the Ming and Qing dynasties, clouded leopard skin was generally popular with people and sold well in the market. The Qing Dynasty naturalist Chen Yuanlong commented in his notebook "Gezhi Jingyuan" that "the name of the seemingly small and scattered person is Aiye Leopard, and its price is especially expensive than lianqian (golden leopard)".
But clouded leopards do not need this "honor", for them, the most beautiful pattern is just a camouflage when hunting, convenient to quietly approach the prey in the mottled background. But in the eyes of human beings, this unique cloud pattern has been given an auspicious meaning, and even the clouded leopard skin has doubled in value.
This can be found in ancient books. For example, in the fifty-second time of "Dream of the Red Chamber", Qingwen dragged her sick body to stay up late to repair the "Bird Golden Fur", which is a luxurious brocade robe woven with gold and silver thread peacock hair and clouded leopard skin.
Yong Qingwen's illness makes up for the finches jinqiu
It is conceivable that if the skin of the clouded leopard is precious enough, how could Jia Mu, who loved Sun's heart, give it to Jia Baoyu and instruct him to cherish it and value it?
The colorful fur is an integral part of the clouded leopard, its camouflage when hunting, its hiding when it leaps from the treetops, and the source of its unfortunate fate.
Historically, most of the forests inhabited by clouded leopards are remote, deserted, subject to traffic conditions and backward productivity constraints, and people hunt clouded leopards only within a limited range, so they do not pose a serious threat to the continuation of the population.
Turtle-like clouded leopard skin
But after entering the 50s, things changed. With the founding of New China, the development of a wartime depression in the social economy became an urgent priority. In order to promote the development of urban and rural economies, in July 1950, the National Supply and Marketing Cooperative was established in Beijing, and then under the care of people's governments at all levels, it developed rapidly, and soon formed a nationwide circulation network that was connected from top to bottom and crisscrossed.
With the improvement of the supply and marketing system, supply and marketing cooperatives not only provide a platform for mountain people to sell their prey, but also facilitate the purchase of firearms and ammunition. In addition, at that time, the people's government vigorously organized various social trades to carry out production, and many people's communes even organized special hunting groups to go into the mountains to hunt in the name of developing side businesses.
All this marked the beginning of a turning point in the fortunes of the clouded leopard.
In 1955, the production of leopard skins in Jiangxi Province alone was as high as 1187, of which clouded leopards accounted for more than one-fifth; In the early 1960s, an average of 395 clouded leopard skins could be purchased per year in Guizhou Province; During the same period, the output of fujian, Hunan and Hubei provinces could also reach about hundreds of sheets.
The clouded leopard specimen is now in the collection of @Beijing Museum of Natural History
Although the clouded leopard is widely popular because of its extremely high economic value, it must be pointed out that for a long time, the clouded leopard was not the main object of hunting production.
On the one hand, the organized hunting in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China was mostly aimed at eliminating "animal infestations", and the larger and harmful south China tigers and leopards that endangered humans and livestock naturally bore the brunt of nature, and the clouded leopard was obviously not in this ranks.
On the other hand, the clouded leopard has high habitat requirements, mainly living in woodlands with less disturbance. Even in Malaysia, which is rich in prey resources, the average density of clouded leopards is only 1.8 to 4.7 per 100 square kilometers, and the natural low density of clouded leopards makes it impossible to hunt them exclusively.
From 1985 to 1988, Yanling County, Zhuzhou, Hunan Province, rescued 3 clouded leopards and sent them to the Peach Blossom Cave Conservation Area for breeding
According to the statistics of the Local Products Company of Meigu County, Sichuan Province, in the 20 years from 1960 to 1979, more than 900 golden cat skins were purchased locally, but only more than 50 clouded leopard skins were obtained, and an average of 1 to 2 pieces could be obtained a year, which was enough to reflect the rarity of wild clouded leopards.
Coincidentally, from a 1970 visit to a hunting production team in Jianghua County, southern Hunan, it was learned that the township hunting group hunted 555 large and small wild animals in a year, while the clouded leopard appeared only twice. It can be seen that even in the main production areas, the clouded leopard is not a common animal.
Clouded leopard specimen from guangxi natural museum @ giant
But clouded leopards have their own weaknesses — like most cats, clouded leopards prefer to move along the more open ridgeline, often leaving traces such as feces and claw marks. To experienced hunters, this seems to be a clear declaration of their existence.
On June 10, 1991, there was a case in Changshan County, Quzhou, Zhejiang Province, where a villager surnamed Wu used a dark bow to catch two clouded leopards, each weighing more than 10 kilograms, in just a few hours on the mountain around the village. When the Guizhou mammal survey team visited Fanjing Mountain in December 1974, a hunter in Panxi Town, Jiangkou County, reported that three clouded leopards had been caught on the same path. It can be seen that once the habit is mastered, it is not difficult to hunt the clouded leopard.
A specimen of a clouded leopard collected by the Guizhou Mammal Survey Team on April 29, 1971 in Guiding County, Qiannan Prefecture, is now in the collection of @Guizhou Normal University
The density of clouded leopards is also closely related to the activity of other large predators, and field studies from Thailand and India have shown that small and medium-sized cats such as clouded leopards and ocelots will usher in significant growth when big cats such as tiger leopards are conspicuously absent.
The same thing happened domestically. Fur statistics from Gannan and Ganzhong show that in the early 1950s, the purchase volume of golden leopards in Jiangxi Province was four times that of clouded leopards, but since the continuous implementation of the eradication of pests in the 1960s, the purchase volume of golden leopards has been declining, from 325 at its peak to only 6.
During this period, the production of clouded leopards has maintained a stable trend, with the annual acquisition volume hovering around 100 pieces, and the maximum number of them reaching 145 pieces in a year. Even after other large beasts of prey were artificially exterminated, the population of the clouded leopard in Jiangxi showed a rebound. It can be said that "there is no tiger in the mountains, and the clouded leopard is called the king"
Clouded leopard caught in mangshan forest area (belonging to the Nanling Mountains) in Yizhang County, Hunan
In China, however, the clouded leopard's spring is short–it's clear that when the tiger falls, hunters turn to aiming their guns at the clouded leopard hiding in the treetops.
After entering the 1980s, with the extinction of large predators such as tigers and leopards, clouded leopards were increasingly regarded as important objects of hunting production. The skin was purchased by the foreign trade department, the clouded leopard bone entered the warehouse of the Chinese herbal medicine company, and the remaining leopard meat was also a high-grade game, which was quite popular in the Liangguang area. All in all, no part of the clouded leopard's body will be easily wasted.
Clouded Leopard Skeleton @ Orlando City Skeleton Museum
In fact, as early as 1961, the "Draft Provisional Management Measures for Hunting" formulated by the Ministry of Forestry of the People's Republic of China listed clouded leopards and golden snub-nosed monkeys as prohibited prey species, pointing out that business strategies must implement the principle of strengthening resource protection.
Obviously, the law is not well enforced. Thick and luxurious clouded leopard skin can be exchanged for a large amount of foreign exchange in the international market, so it has ushered in a crazy acquisition of foreign trade companies. Some regions have also introduced "skin reward policies" to encourage mountain people to sell by any means.
For example, in Lixian County, Sichuan Province, each clouded leopard skin can be exchanged for 50 catties of grain and 2 feet of cloth tickets. It was undoubtedly a large amount at the time, which further stimulated the hunting of clouded leopards.
Due to the low natural density of clouded leopards, the impact of such a large-scale hunt is almost fatal. By the 1980s, the clouded leopard in some places had in fact been wiped out.
A clouded leopard specimen collected in Minhou County, Fujian Province, is now in the collection of Beijing Forestry University @ National Animal Specimen Resource Sharing Platform
The most obvious decline occurred in Guizhou Province, in the first half of the 1960s, Guizhou Province purchased an average of 395 clouded leopard skins per year, ranking first in the southwest provinces, after the 1970s it was reduced to an annual output of about 30 pieces, and after the 1980s, it was only 2-3 pieces per year, less than one percent of what it was twenty years ago, and the population declined so rapidly that it was unimaginable.
In 1983, the survey found that only 19 clouded leopard skins were received in four counties in southern Anhui, including Ningguo, Shexian, Jingxian and Jingde, highlighting the dilemma faced by clouded leopards compared with hundreds of acquisition records decades ago.
Fortunately, in the "List of Wild Animals under National Key Protection" approved and promulgated by the State Council in December 1988, the clouded leopard was listed as a national first-level protected animal, and since then it has had a legal basis for the protection of the clouded leopard.
For this already precarious species, will this belated document be a long-lost dawn?
03 Deadly Feast
Dictionaries before the 1980s had an evaluation of the clouded leopard - "the whole body is a treasure". For the clouded leopard, this is not a compliment, but more like a curse.
The clouded leopard was one of the earliest protected wild animals in New China, and when the clouded leopard entered the list of banned prey species in 1961, the South China tiger was still being hunted as a "pest" on a large scale.
The "National Compilation of Chinese Herbal Medicine" published in 1975 records that the clouded leopard bone has "wind and communication, strong muscles and bones." For rheumatic paralysis, sore feet and knees". In most cases, though, clouded leopard bone is only used as an alternative to tiger bone.
In 1991, a clouded leopard was accidentally killed in Chayuan Township, Ninghai County, Ningbo, Zhejiang Province
Traditional Chinese medicine refers to the golden cat and the clouded leopard as "hybrid leopards", believing that they belong to a species of low value, far less favored than gorgeous fur. However, as the source of wild tiger bone is nearly depleted, the use of clouded leopard bone or golden cat bone into medicine is becoming more common.
From 1968 to 1974, Hunan Yongzhou Jianghua County Medicinal Materials Company successively purchased 5 clouded leopards from the local area for medicinal purposes. People soon realized that whether in terms of quality or output, clouded leopard bone can be used as a replacement for tiger bones, so it opened the prelude to the large-scale use of clouded leopard as a medicinal animal, in the main production area of Jiangxi Ganzhou, Anyuan County Distillery produced leopard bone wine so popular that in 1990 by the Jiangxi Provincial Food Industry Office as a provincial quality wine product
Clouded leopard specimen from the Ganzhou Museum in Jiangxi Province @ Giant
In fact, according to the 1961 Draft Hunting Management Measures, the use of clouded leopards into medicine and alcohol are strictly restricted. Ironically, it was not until January 1, 2006, that the mainland banned the hunting of leopards from the wild and the acquisition of leopard bones, which had previously been in a gray area.
In most cases, even if the clouded leopard has the title of national key protected wild animals, it still has not stopped the crazy acquisition of foreign trade departments, and only occasional law enforcement cases have revealed the tip of the iceberg of the illegal trade of clouded leopards for us.
In 1984, a major poaching case was cracked in Longmen County, Huizhou, Guangdong Province. The local county traditional Chinese medicine hospital bypassed the regulatory authorities and secretly purchased a large number of golden cats and clouded leopards from Changting County, Longyan, Fujian Province, for medicinal purposes, and as many as 14 fresh clouded leopard golden cat corpses seized at the scene alone, with a total weight of 253.6 kilograms, and 119.4 kilograms of fake tiger glue and 74 bottles of fake tiger bone wine.
Leopard bone wine produced domestically in the 1980s
Longmen County Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine is just a microcosm of the illegal trade in clouded leopards. In the same year, China opened up its fur market and was no longer uniformly acquired by supply and marketing cooperatives and foreign trade departments. Since then, the wildlife trade has entered an era of marketization. A large number of traders walked the streets and alleys, directly purchasing wild game from the place of origin and selling it to the Pearl River Delta region, which was economically prosperous at that time.
With the end of the era of planned acquisitions, the clouded leopard did not usher in a real spring, but was wrapped up in a greedy and complicated smuggling network and fell into the abyss.
In particular, many law enforcement departments have not yet formed the concept that the clouded leopard belongs to the protection of animals, and they only adopt a "thin mud" attitude for some poaching cases, and lack effective accountability.
For example, in September 1986, a clouded leopard was found to have been poached in Changpu Township, Taoyuan County, Changde, Hunan Province, and the criminal suspect Zhang Qingbing, in addition to being recovered of the stolen money, only asked to write an inspection and was not punished in any way. The absence of law enforcement has disguised the prevalence of poaching.
From 1991 to 2002, the Liuyang Forestry Bureau of Changsha City, Hunan Province, confiscated 6 live clouded leopards, 1 clouded leopard carcass and 4 clouded leopard skins. These records from law enforcement are almost the last evidence of The Hunan clouded leopard, and there are many more poaching cases that are silently happening in the corners we can't see.
In 1991, the clouded leopard seized by the forestry public security of Longyan City weighed 32 kilograms and was released back to the Wuyishan Nature Reserve
In such poaching cases against clouded leopards, in addition to obtaining skin and leopard bones, clouded leopard meat is also one of the targets of poachers, especially in the Liangguang area, which has a long tradition of wild game, and eating clouded leopards is considered to have the effect of strengthening the body.
In 1987, a group of Hong Kong tourists came to Huizhou City, Guangdong Province, to visit, and when they were eating at a place called "Xinghua Game Restaurant", they saw a live clouded leopard for sale in the restaurant's cage, and Hong Kong guests were greatly surprised, and then ordered to enjoy it, took photos and brought it back to Hong Kong to be hyped.
At this time, Hong Kong was already the financial center of Asia, and this news spread like wings, and the local newspapers in Hong Kong quickly reported in depth with "Hong Kong eaters go to Huizhou to eat tiger feast and bring back tiger teeth", which caused a serious adverse impact on the image of the mainland at that time.
Smuggled clouded leopard skin seized in Hong Kong @ Rondnoirm
The Hong Kong office of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) immediately lodged a serious protest with the Guangdong Provincial Forestry Department, and the disgraced provincial government immediately issued instructions to the local forestry department to jointly investigate and deal with the matter with the Forestry Department and the Bureau of Industry and Commerce.
Affected by this incident, since 1987, the Huizhou Forestry Bureau, the Industry and Commerce Bureau, the Fisheries Bureau and the Forestry Public Security Bureau have jointly carried out wildlife law enforcement inspections 3 to 4 times a year, which has alleviated the spread of wild game to a certain extent.
The clouded leopard specimen in the Collection of Huzhou Museum is an illegal trade individual seized by the forest police in restaurants and markets around 1990, and it was kept as a specimen after his death
The "Huizhou Tiger Feast" incident can be seen in the implementation of the Wildlife Protection Law of the last century: in most cases, only the front-line poachers themselves are punished, while the operators and sellers and consumers are often safe.
Even if such a serious public opinion storm was caused, and the felony of illegally operating the clouded leopard, a wild animal under national key protection, the Xinghua Wild Game House where the incident occurred was still not accountable, and only the hunter Liu Jixin was hastily fined 4600 yuan. For unscrupulous traders, such punishment is clearly without any deterrent.
So in November of the same year, Xinghua Game Restaurant sold another live clouded leopard from Longchuan County, Heyuan City, and reselled it to Taoyuan Hotel after a period of breeding until it was discovered and confiscated by the Huizhou Municipal Environmental Protection Department. Xinghua Game House's fearless attitude highlights the impact of lack of law enforcement on wildlife conservation in the last century.
Smuggling of seized clouded leopard skin coats
In December 1993, a Jinfeng wild game seafood restaurant in Futian Town, Boluo County, Huizhou City, was once again seized as an illegal clouded leopard. This time, the domestic media also actively participated, and Huizhou City Television, Nanfang Daily, Huizhou Daily and Huizhou Evening News all made special reports on the case.
Under severe pressure from public opinion, the hotel owner Deng Guang was severely warned and fined 80,000 yuan, and the rescued clouded leopard was also sent to shenzhen wildlife park for breeding.
The southern part of Boluo County borders Hong Kong, and with the deepening of market economic reforms, the bad practice of eating wild game in the two Guangzhou areas has once again revived. In the 1980s, a non-commissioned officer of the Jinan Military Region who returned from a business trip to Liangguang told his comrades-in-arms, "This trip is not vain, I have eaten pangolins, chewed baby fish, nibbled on clouded leopard meat, and also eaten monkey brains, and a banquet cost tens of thousands of yuan." ”
To this day, pangolins can still be seen in game restaurants
Poaching such as these quickly extinguished the last remaining populations in the Lingnan region. On January 20, 1990, Wei Zhongyuan, a farmer in Wuhua County, Meizhou City, and others went to Shenzhen with a large number of protected animals, including two clouded leopards, to sell, and were caught by the police on the spot, one of which was dead when it was found.
On December 6 of the same year, farmers in Renhua County, Shaoguan City, caught a live clouded leopard in Fanzi Mountain, Changjiang Town, which was lucky and was sent to Guangzhou Zoo for breeding. This is the last confirmed record of the clouded leopard in Guangdong, the origin of its model, and no further discoveries have been made since.
04 The end of the clouded leopard in East China
On September 17, 2002, a thrilling scene occurred in the China Tiger Park in Meihua Mountain, Fujian Province, when a wild clouded leopard walked into the herbivores area, disturbing the herd of sika deer that was resting, leaving a large number of traces on the fence, it took away a sika deer weighing more than 100 kilograms, and then disappeared into the night.
In 1992, in a comprehensive review organized by the United Nations Environment Programme, Meihua Mountain found a total of 56 claws in the wild, 6 footprints, collected 8 pieces of tiger whistle information, and witnessed 44 South China tigers.
In 1992, a clouded leopard found in a poaching trap in Meihua Mountain, Fujian Province, died shortly after the picture was taken @ Chris Coggins
In order to better protect the South China tiger, in 1999, the Longyan Municipal Government established the South China Tiger Breeding Center in Shanghang County, and introduced seed sources from Suzhou Zoo and Guilin Xionghu Mountain Villa, becoming one of the earliest institutions in China to carry out research on the rewilding of South China tigers.
As of 2000, there were 6 South China tigers living in the Meihua Mountain China Tiger Park, and there is no doubt that wild clouded leopards usually actively avoid tiger activities, why is this clouded leopard so bold that it dares to step into the territory of the king of the forest to forage?
Coincidentally, the same situation also appeared in Anhui, the Yak Down Reserve once made a statistic, from 1998 to 2003, Shitai County, Chizhou City, recorded 13 clouded leopards descending the mountain, for such a shy species, such frequent descent events are a difficult thing to imagine.
Clouded leopard caught in the Jinggang Mountains of Jiangxi
In order to find out the truth, Anhui Normal University dissected four clouded leopard corpses transferred by Shitai County in April 2000, and the autopsy results showed that three of them had hollow stomachs and no food. What's going on behind this abnormal behavior?
The answer is self-evident – the Great Famine.
This seems incomprehensible, because the clouded leopard is not very large, and when the environment suddenly deteriorates and large animals die, the clouded leopard can survive the most difficult time by hunting small prey. In Zhejiang Province, for example, the last record of a South China tiger capture remains in 1958, while clouded leopards survived at least a few forest areas until after 1994.
Clouded leopard @ Alamy in Manas National Park, India
However, the clouded leopard itself has a natural disadvantage. As mentioned earlier, clouded leopards are extremely low in density under natural conditions and require a wider territory to thrive.
Studies from Thailand estimate that female clouded leopards need a home area of 33.6 to 39.7 square kilometers, and male clouded leopards need 35.5 to 43.5 square kilometers, even larger than the range of tigers.
The highest recorded density of clouded leopards is located in the Dampa Tiger Reserve in the northeastern Indian state of Mizoram, with a population of 5.14 per 100 square kilometres. Although the Tempa Sanctuary has tigers in its name, the local big cat family has actually disappeared many years ago. The clouded leopard became the largest carnivore, and with an unusually abundant abundance of food resources, it was possible to form such a high-density population.
A paper published in 2020 shows that maintaining the long-term survival of a clouded leopard population requires at least 800 square kilometers of continuous habitat, including large areas of undisturbed primary forest, healthy ecological structures, and limited hunting pressure.
Clouded leopards captured in Xianning, Hubei Province, in the 1980s
Historically, clouded leopards have been widely distributed in East China, including Meiling (1960s) in the suburbs of Nanchang, Qishan (1998) on the outskirts of Fuzhou, and Maopu Reservoir in the southern suburbs of Wuhan (1984), all of which have been captured around these provincial capitals.
As the flagship species in the mountains of East China, the body of the clouded leopard has become a barometer of forest health, and of the 13 clouded leopards descending the mountain in Shitai County, only 3 are relatively robust, and the rest of the individuals are very thin. Even they have difficulty finding food, meaning the local ecosystem is on the verge of deteriorating.
A specimen of a clouded leopard collected from Tianmu Mountain in Western Zhejiang Province
As hunting pressures surged, the clouded leopard, closest to the human activity area, became extinct first, followed by the clouded leopard in isolated forest areas. In those contiguous habitats, such as the Southern Anhui Mountains in southern Anhui, the Jiufeng Mountains on the border of Xianggan and Gansu, and the Wuyi Mountains in western Fujian, the clouded leopard persisted until the end.
These areas share common features – they were protected very early, with high forest cover, abundant flora and fauna, and not seriously damaged even during the Great Leap Forward, ensuring the integrity and comprehensiveness of the ecosystem to the greatest extent.
The turning point occurred in 1985, in order to revitalize the rural economy, China fully opened the timber market, abolished the timber purchase system, shared the collective forest to individuals, encouraged large households to contract forests, and since then forestry felling has entered the era of marketization.
Anhui Jing County Matou Forest Farm, a uniform plantation @ China Green Times
The impact of forestry reform on clouded leopards is almost fatal.
Taking Shitai County, where the Yak Niu Drop Reserve is located, as an example, the natural vegetation was originally dominated by subtropical evergreen broad-leaved forests, and in 1985, the plantation forest accounted for only 17% of the total forest area, but with the slogan of "five years to eliminate barren mountains, eight years to green Anhui", a large area of natural secondary forest and wasteland are regarded as symbols of backwardness and are objects that need to be "eliminated".
The wasteland was worthless in the eyes of the people—overgrown with weeds, infested with mosquitoes, large patches of dark weeds growing on the trunks of fallen trees, and centipedes waiting in the corners for an ambush. But in fact, this shrub habitat is a favorite habitat for south Chinese rabbits and ring-necked pheasants, and it is also an ideal hunting ground for clouded leopards.
As the wasteland disappears. Rows of neatly arranged conifers are replaced, and the plantation is beautiful and generous, but in essence the internal productivity is extremely low, few hares are willing to come here to move, even the birdsong is sparse, this belongs to the "wasteland" in the eyes of the clouded leopard, it is an unblessed territory.
By 2000, the proportion of plantations in Shitai County had grown rapidly to about 30 percent, followed by a widespread famine of clouded leopards.
In 1988, the clouded leopard was rescued in Yanling County, Hunan Province
According to statistics, in the two years from 1999 to 2000, 24 clouded leopards appeared around settlements in southern Anhui Province, including some areas that had not appeared for many years.
This is by no means a normal phenomenon, and hunger forces wild clouded leopards to set foot on human territory at great risk, increasing their risk of accidents.
If they are lucky — they'll be transferred to a zoo and then spent their entire lives in captivity in an iron cage, such as a clouded leopard that appeared in March 1987 at a forest farm in Encun, Pingjiang County, Hunan Province, which was captured by the county environmental protection department and handed over to the Changsha Zoo for breeding.
If unfortunate, the clouded leopard descending the mountain is likely to be killed by angry farmers, such as a female clouded leopard found in February 2000 in the town of Luoqiao in Jing County, Anhui Province, and was killed on the spot when she entered the house to eat pigs.
The clouded leopard "Xiaoyun", which became popular due to obesity at the Chengdu Zoo, was rescued from the wild around 2000
If the large-scale acquisition in the era of planned economy has forced the cloud leopard into the mountains, then the comprehensive opening up of the market-oriented economy is undoubtedly the last straw that crushes the camel.
In March 1993, Professor Sheng Helin of East China Normal University went to the Ma mane Ridge area of Dabie Mountain to investigate, and he was surprised to find that there were almost no pieces of woodland below 1,000 meters above sea level in the reserve, and traces of local mountain people transporting timber into the mountains could be seen everywhere, and most of the residual vegetation above 1,000 meters had been transformed into plantations.
This is hard to imagine, because Ma mane Ridge was one of the first nature reserves in Anhui Province to be established in 1982 specifically for the conservation of musk, but it is almost a microcosm of all the forests in Eastern China during the same period.
In 2013, a clouded leopard @ Li Jian was raised at the Anhui South Wildlife Rescue Center
With the fragmentation of the remaining protected areas and unrestricted poaching, the last clouded leopard sanctuary in East China was no longer able to support the survival of the species, so around 2000, the news reports of clouded leopards descending the mountain increased dramatically.
- On May 14, 1993, Yangzhou Township, Wuning County, Jiangxi Province, rescued a clouded leopard weighing 30 kilograms and then released it back into the wild
- On March 24, 1994, a clouded leopard weighing 18.5 kilograms was mistakenly captured at the Dashan Forest Farm in Wangxian Township, Shangrao County, Jiangxi Province, and was handed over to the Forestry Bureau and released to the Wuyishan Wildlife Conservation Area.
- In 1994, two clouded leopards were released from Kaihua County, Zhejiang Province.
- In December 1997, two clouded leopards weighing 25 kg and 10 kg were found in moderate town, Longyan Silla District, Fujian Province.
- On December 26, 1998, the Public Security Bureau of Wanzai County, Jiangxi Province, found a female clouded leopard that had been mistakenly caught by a wild boar clip in the Xikeng Group of Xikeng Township, weighing about 22.5 kilograms, and then released it into the wild.
- In 1999, three juvenile clouded leopards were caught in Dingxi Township, Jing County, Anhui Province, and released.
- In 2001, three clouded leopards were seized in Chizhou City, Anhui Province, and released to nature.
The sharp increase in the record of clouded leopards descending the mountain during this period is not a symbol of ecological improvement, but the last return of a species.
In 2006, the Southern Anhui Wildlife Rescue Center in Huangshan City received a clouded leopard rescued from Xiuning County, the last time a live clouded leopard was obtained in the entire East China region.
Suspected clouded leopard appearing on fire lanes
There may still be very few individuals who have survived into recent years, such as in 2010 when rangers reported seeing clouded leopards and the carcasses of Tibetan chief monkeys suspected of being attacked by them. But the strongest evidence comes from camera lenses, which were taken twice by infrared cameras on the fire road of the Huangshan Scenic Area in 2013 and 2014.
Unfortunately, this may be the last memory left to us by the East China clouded leopard. Since the large-scale introduction of infrared camera surveys, but the presence of clouded leopards has never appeared, perhaps this isolated small group has come to an end in a wave of habitat development and destruction.
In the past two decades, clouded leopard populations in almost all parts of the world have declined to varying degrees, most notably in China.
A 2019 study noted that since 2000, as many as 34 percent of the high-quality habitats within the globally known clouded leopard distribution map have disappeared, compared with 97 percent in China — 2.8 times the world average.
Global clouded leopard habitat quality analysis
Scientists define continuous forests covering an area of more than 1,000 square kilometers as the "high-quality habitat" of the clouded leopard, and only in this large contiguous forest can the clouded leopard have the possibility of long-term continuation.
The study also pointed out that such high-quality habitats no longer exist in Chinese mainland, and only in the southwestern borderlands, part of the protected area bordering Southeast Asia, can be counted as part of the ideal habitat for the clouded leopard.
So, will the vast southwest retain the last hope of the Chinese clouded leopard?
05 Mountains and rivers are connected, the Promised Land
Let's turn our attention to the vast southwestern provinces, in fact, until the last two decades, there are many recorded clouded leopards in protected areas in southwest China.
- From 1990 to 1992, in the wuliang mountainous area of central Yunnan, the staff of the Kunming Institute of Zoology witnessed the precious picture of the clouded leopard chasing the western black-crowned gibbon four times.
- From 1995 to 1997, in Jinsha County, Bijie City, Guizhou, three clouded leopards were caught by local farmers.
- In 2001 and 2003, Changning County, Yibin, Sichuan Province, rescued two clouded leopards.
Compared with the provinces of East China, the Yunnan-Guichuan region developed late and had a low population density, and the local clouded leopard population has survived until recent times.
The clouded leopard in the collection of the Chongqing Three Gorges Museum may have come from the local collection of @ giants
However, it must be pointed out that not all areas in the southwest are suitable for the survival of clouded leopards, such as the majestic Chuanxi Mountain Ridge, which still has a large area of intact primary forest and is effectively protected due to the flagship breeding effect of giant pandas, which may be one of the best habitats in China.
However, for a typical subtropical species such as the clouded leopard, it is difficult for them to adapt to the relatively cool climate of the high-altitude mountainous areas, so a series of majestic mountains in western Sichuan, including Minshan, Qionglai mountain, Daxiangling, etc., have never recorded the presence of clouded leopards.
As for the rest of the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, especially some areas with low population densities, such as Zhaotong in northeastern Yunnan, we know that the clouded leopard has been tenacious for a long time.
Before the 1990s, clouded leopards were captured in Yingjiang County, Dehong Prefecture, Yunnan Province
Today's Zhaotong is famous for being home to the world's black-necked cranes, and it seems that there are only black-necked cranes and endless highland lakes and swamps. In fact, Zhaotong is a typical mountain city, located at the confluence of the Hengduan Mountains and the Wumeng Mountains, with slopes above 25 degrees accounting for 53% of the total area.
The terrain here is undulating, inaccessible, and the steep environment greatly restricts people's development, just under the meadow where black-necked cranes dance, and clouded leopards jump and chase in the forest.
Unfortunately, much of what we know about this clouded leopard comes from local court records. This blood-stained text depicts to us the final fate of the Zhaotong clouded leopard.
Clouded leopards were once raised in Taibao Park, Baoshan City, Yunnan Province, about the 1990s
From February 8 to February 22, 1994, in Gaotian Township, Weixin County, the northeasternmost tip of Zhaotong City, several hunters killed and poisoned three clouded leopards in less than half a month, and after reporting them, they were arrested by evidence and finally sentenced to 2 years in prison by the local court.
This case is certainly a tragedy, but it also shows us that there is an important clouded leopard population active deep in the Zhaotong Mountains. Even because the large carnivores have long disappeared, this group of clouded leopards has reached a very dense presence, in order to catch 3 individuals in just half a month.
However, more than a decade later, the roar of the black-crowned gibbon still reverberates in the valley of central Yunnan, and the black-necked crane returns to the Dashanbao wetland for wintering year after year, and the clouded leopard population in the interior of Yunnan is coming to an end.
It's hard to associate the black-necked crane on the plateau with the clouded leopard that lives in the rainforest
The answer to all this is simple – poaching.
In 1995, a complete clouded leopard skin sold for 30,000 yuan in the Shenzhen market, which was almost an irresistible temptation for the poor Yunguishan people.
After the poaching incident in Gaotian Township, the punishment of the law did not curb the ambitions of the lawbreakers. From the verdict, it can be seen that in the next few years, several more clouded leopards were poached.
- On November 1, 1999, Shimono Fumio, a villager in Zhonghe Village, Yanjin County, killed a clouded leopard in the Dajinshan forest farm and was sentenced to five years in prison.
- On April 13, 2000, Jiang Xianyun, a farmer in Dousha Township, Yanjin County, illegally hunted a clouded leopard, and the suspect was transferred to the judicial organs.
As far as we know, the death of the clouded leopard by poaching in Dousha Township is the last conclusive record of the entire yunnan inland, and the Zhaotong clouded leopard was lucky enough to catch a glimpse of the dawn of the 21st century, and then fell into the infinite abyss.
In Yibin, Sichuan Province, across the Jinsha River from Zhaotong, the last wild clouded leopard record was recorded on August 9, 2007. At that time, a pair of clouded leopard mother and son were crossing the road in Zhongping Village, Meitong Town, Changning County, when they were disturbed by a passing motorcycle, the female leopard fled in a panic, and the cubs were picked up by the residents and were urgently released into the wild after being identified by the forestry department. This is the last time a clouded leopard has been found in China outside the border.
Clouded leopard rescued from the wild in Changning County, Sichuan Province
Changning County, the last clouded leopard in the southwest inland, has been implementing the project of returning farmland to forests since 1990, and the forest coverage rate is as high as 44.1%. In August 2001 and March 2003, Meitong Town rescued one male and one male clouded leopard and sent it to the rare animal farm in Changning County.
On October 29, 2007, the rescued clouded leopards were fortunate enough to give birth to two cubs, both female, which were transferred to the better conditions of the Chongqing Zoo in 2009.
When the clouded leopards raised at the Chengdu Zoo and the Huangshan Zoo died of advanced age in 2015 and 2016 respectively, the pair of clouded leopard sisters became the only two individuals in the entire Yangtze River Basin, and even Chinese mainland known to have survived. Unfortunately, they are too old and both are females, doomed to be unable to pass on their precious bloodlines.
Clouded leopard sister @ Sun Ge of Chongqing Zoo
Piaf is innocent and guilty, and people's greed for clouded leopards is the bane of their tragic fate.
In 1985, for every piece of clouded leopard skin exported by China, it could be exchanged for foreign exchange of 700 US dollars, and the value of live clouded leopard was even higher, and the price of a live clouded leopard in the international market was usually as high as 6,000 US dollars, and it was often priceless.
Data from the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) shows that between 1973 and 1999, China alone legally exported 37 live clouded leopards, making it the largest exporter of origin, the vast majority of which were sold to Japan.
In September 1986, Changsha Zoo presented the clouded leopard to Hirakawa Zoo in Japan
With the end of the domestic clouded leopard, the booming wildlife consumption market is becoming more and more prosperous. In just over a decade, China has rapidly gone from being the largest exporter of clouded leopards to an important importer.
In 2004 alone, as many as 12 smuggled clouded leopard skins were confiscated throughout Yunnan Province, and a pair of clouded leopard skeletons were also collected. In June 2006, the forest police in Xishuangbanna Prefecture seized four clouded leopard skins smuggled from abroad. In 2008, Baoshan City seized one clouded leopard skin and three pairs of clouded leopard skeletons.
In November 2008, when the non-governmental environmental protection organization TRAFFIC was investigating the vicinity of Xining tar Temple in Qinghai, it saw a clouded leopard skin for sale in a tourist souvenir shop. Qinghai is not the origin of the clouded leopard, so it can be seen that this must be illegally smuggled from other places.
Clouded leopard skins sold in Myanmar markets
All indications show that after the 21st century, China has become an important node in the illegal trade of clouded leopards in the world. Ironically, it was only during this period that mainland scholars conducted a preliminary investigation into the ecology of the wild clouded leopard.
In 2005, Feng Limin's team from Beijing Normal University took China's first ecological photo of a wild clouded leopard in the Nan rolling River Nature Reserve in Lincang, Yunnan, kicking off the prelude to the mainland clouded leopard survey.
China's first wild clouded leopard photo @ Feng Limin
Since then, with the deepening of research, clouded leopard images have also been taken in Xishuangbanna National Conservation Area, Yiwu Nature Reserve, Gaoligong Mountain, Tongbiguan and Dulongjiang River Valley.
From southern Yunnan to northwestern Yunnan, these clouded leopard-infested forests are like green emeralds, connecting the entire border of Yunnan. Unfortunately, all the newly discovered sites are located around the borders, and the roar of the clouded leopard has not been heard in the inland areas for a long time.
A 2020 study noted that clouded leopards are already extinct within Vietnam, that populations in Bangladesh and China may be functionally extinct, that populations in Malaysia, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar are declining, and that only populations in places like India, Nepal, Bhutan and Thailand are relatively stable.
The clouded leopard is a highly arboreal cat with amazing climbing abilities, and it can even hang upside down from a tree and move down upside down
Wildlife conservationist Aron White believes that due to habitat destruction and rampant poaching, only 4,000 clouded leopards may survive in the wild world, which is less than wild tigers.
At least in China, the wild clouded leopard may be only slightly more abundant than tigers, but far fewer than all other big cats.
According to a survey by the China Feline Conservation Alliance (CFCA) in the Yiwu Prefecture-level Nature Reserve in Xishuangbanna, only three individual clouded leopards can be identified on 33,000 hectares of protected land.
Clouded leopard photographed by Tibet's Metuo
In addition to Yunnan, another province with a wild clouded leopard distribution is Tibet. Due to the high mountains and long roads, people's understanding of the Tibetan clouded leopard was relatively late, and it was not until 1973, during the joint expedition to southeast Tibet organized by the Institute of Zoology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, that researchers obtained the first clouded leopard specimen in the Chayu River Basin.
Before the 1980s, the TNAC's foreign trade department was able to buy about 10 furs a year, which is almost the only impression we have of the Tibetan clouded leopard.
It wasn't until 2011 that the Team of Beijing Forestry University captured the first live image of a clouded leopard in Metuo County. It now appears that the intact Brahmaputra Valley may harbor the last hope of the clouded leopard in China.
The clouded leopard has well-developed canine teeth, so it is known as the "little saber-toothed tiger"
The clouded leopard is the most dangerous of China's four big cats, and the continuous hunting pressure and habitat destruction over the years have pushed the clouded leopard to the last territory step by step, in other words, the Chinese clouded leopard, which has no way back, has reached the point of life and death.
Now that they are limited to a few hidden forest areas on the southwestern border, across the border from the poorer Laos and Myanmar, where will the clouded leopard be tomorrow?
If we stand idly by and allow the crisis to worsen, China's most mysterious big cat is doomed to extinction.
Fortunately, it's not too late, at least they are still thriving in some hidden corner, and the future of clouded leopards is in our hands, depending on everything we can do today.
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