Snares don’t discriminate: A problem for wild cats, both big and small

[UngulateNerd92]

• Millions of snares dot the forests and protected areas of Southeast Asia, set to feed the illegal wildlife trade and wild game demand, where they sweep up multiple species, including threatened wild cats; in Africa, snaring for subsistence hunting causes a similar problem.

• Snares are noose-like traps that can be designed to target certain groups, such as types of ungulates, while others may sweep up many more. Crafted from a variety of materials, such as wire, cable, rope or nylon, these low-tech and cheap devices are set to catch animals by either the neck, foot or torso.

• Snares have played a part in wiping out big cat populations from places such as Vietnam and Laos, but they also impact small cat species, such as the fishing cat, Asiatic and African golden cats, and clouded leopards.

• Conservationists say solutions to snaring must work at different levels to tackle drivers, which vary depending on the region. This includes working with communities and reducing demand for wild game.

In 2019, researchers declared the Indochinese tiger extinct in Laos as widespread snaring in Nam Et-Phou Louey National Park picked off the last few individuals of Panthera tigris corbetti. Two years later, scientists found that smaller cat species, such as the clouded leopard (Neofelis nebulosa) and marbled cat (Pardofelis marmorata), were also in decline in the park. It was thought that in the absence of larger predators, smaller cat populations would boom, but this wasn’t the reality on the ground.

“We didn’t see that in the data. We saw their numbers going down too,” says Jan Kamler, with the University of Oxford’s Wildlife Conservation Research Unit. “I think, generally, snaring is the greatest threat to felids in Southeast Asia, more than habitat loss … in some places like Laos and Cambodia that still have habitat, it’s the snaring that has driven them out of these areas.”

Other conservationists say that human-wildlife conflict, persecution and habitat degradation are likely more important factors, especially for the smaller cat species.

Across the border in Vietnam, snaring has already wiped out many felid populations, according to researchers. Aside from a solitary sighting of a marbled cat in 2019 on the border with Laos, only leopard cats (Prionailurus bengalensis), which may be too small and light to trigger widely used foot snares, remain in the country.

“Snaring has basically decimated the wild cat community [in Vietnam],” says Andrew Tilker, species conservation coordinator with Re:wild, an NGO. He says it has played a major role in the extirpation of clouded leopards, Asiatic golden cats (Catopuma temminckii), tigers and leopards (Panthera pardus).

Kamler fears that other countries, specifically Laos and Cambodia, will soon follow the same path. Both nations have lost all of their tigers and leopards.

“I suspect in the future the same is going to be true for clouded leopards, Asiatic golden cats and probably marbled cats too, if snaring continues,” Kamler says.

Snares don’t discriminate: A problem for wild cats, both big and small

 

[Mac]

Humans undoubtedly have the most horrific impact on wild animal populations. Whether it's trafficking, dehorning, poaching or snares. I think a lot of focus gets put onto the conservation and impact on certain species, but it can't be ignored that these methods DO NOT discriminate, as you said. Often wildlife are left trapped, suffering for their lives. And, because of the little value they'd have for the poacher, they're just left there. Thank you for your many comprehensive threads on the subject of conservation and human-wildlife conflict. As horrific as the incidents are, it is nice to know that there is a place where they will be spoken about and reported properly.