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WildCRU collaboration reveals the loss of tigers and leopards in Laos

David Macdonald presents WildCRU’s new video summarising the research carried out by Akchousanh Rasphone and published in Global Ecology and Conservation.

It’s easy to assume that Laos has tigers and leopards, particularly in huge, government-protected areas such as Nam Et-Phou Louey in the north, but it is likely that they have already been poached to local extinction. During her DPhil with WildCRU, Akchousanh Rasphone captured photos of tiger in 2013, but no further sightings on camera. The good news is that four of the six cat species known to exist in Laos were observed by Akchousanh’s silent army of cameras. The beautiful clouded leopard Neofelis nebulosa, the Asian golden cat Catopuma temminckii, the marbled cat Pardofelis marmorata and the leopard cat Prionailurus bengalensis.

Read more about our Clouded Leopard Programme.

Rasphone, A., Kéry, M., Kamler, J. F., & Macdonald, D. W. (2019). Documenting the demise of tiger and leopard, and the status of other carnivores and prey, in Lao PDR’s most prized protected area: Nam Et-Phou Louey. Global Ecology and Conservation, 20, e00766