Date: March 20, 2018

To: Snow Leopard Trust Board

From: Farhaana Khan
Subject: Protecting Wildlife – The Endangered Leopards
Reference: Why are leopards becoming endangered and how to prevent it from happening?
Distribution List: Local Government for Amur and Snow Leopards

The leopard is known to be one of the six big cats in the Wworld which is located mainly in the countries
of Africa, Asia, and Europe. Leopards are mostly recognized for their territorial as well as their solitary
behaviors. Another common attribute of leopards is their hunting skills. Leopards are extremely agile
and swift; they have the ability to hoist preys up into trees to protect them from other large predators
that are out scavenging for food such as hyenas.

Each and every species isare known for multiple unique qualities and every single species is important
and significant for their uniqueness. Protecting leopards are equally as important and vital as protecting
and guarding all the other species and that is the goal of the Snow Leopard Trust. There are subspecies
of leopards that are listed as endangered or near to becoming endangered. It is the responsibility of
everyone to help in protecting these organisms from going extinct.

Summary

There is one specific reason that leopards are being lead to endangerment and that is due to the fact
that some people believe that it is acceptable to hunt leopards. Just because an animal has a beautiful
printed coat of fur, it doesn’t mean they should be harmed for that reason. Leopards’ fur is meant to
protect them and help them to camouflage themselves in the surrounding areas when they are hunting
their preys. However, poaching animals, illegally killing animals for one’s personal benefit, is, without a
doubt, unsatisfactory. Taking the life of an animal solely for their fur, bones, or organs is not an act
anyone should believe to be decent. Making awareness of such crime and ways to protect the leopards
is what the Snow Leopard Trust is going to focus on.

Problem: Endangered Leopards

The problem begins with the fact that there are only about 40 individual Amur Leopards left on Earth
and Snow Leopards are starting to head in the direction of becoming endangered. One of the key reason
and most important reason for their endangerment is because of humans. Poaching animals is the illegal
practice of trespassing on a property to hunt or steal game without permission. This is what people do
to leopards. But not only do they hunt the leopards, but poachers sell them in order to gain a profit.
According to the World Wide Fund for Nature, the skin of an Amur Leopard is about $15,000; the fur is
sold to make luxury items such as coats and rugs. But the people that poaches leopard do not only sell
the skin, they sell the organs and the bones of these leopards. The amount of money that can be made
from this crime is beyond motivational; however, the ethicality and reasons not to do it over powers the
money that can be made. Causing pain and suffering to other creatures is unethical; benefitting from
doing so is considered to be even more unethical. Not only are poachers harming leopards, but they are
harming the ways of nature. By killing these major predators, their preys become abundant. This means,
poaching and killing leopards causes the amount of predator to prey to be distorted, which leads to an
effect on the food chain. The Snow Leopard Trust is an organization that is made to protect the leopard
population. The goal is to improve solutions that will ensure the safety of all species of leopards.

Where Should the Leopards go? Formatted: Font: (Default) Times New Roman, 12 pt, Bold,
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When humans build roads and buildings where the leopards live, where are the leopards supposed to
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go? Putting leopards in zoos is hardly a solution because they need space to roam and they need to Font color: Text 1
hunt. Leopards are very adaptable animals but taking over their space is something no one wishes for if Formatted: Font: (Default) Times New Roman, 12 pt, Bold,
it was done to them. If leopards' habitats are being taken over where should they go? Font color: Text 1
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Font color: Auto

Recommendations

There are a few recommendations that are explained in the following text to help safeguard leopards
from going endangered or extinct. The first solution that the Snow Leopard Trust can start is a simple
way to keep track of the animals by placing a tracking device on the leopards. By doing this, monitoring
the population of leopards in a certain region would be doable. If anything happens to the leopards,
rangers and other authorities will be able to find out what happened to a specific individual leopard.
Another solution is to protect the habitats for these animals. When humans build road and buildings
where the leopards live, where are the leopards supposed to go? Putting leopards in zoos is hardly a
solution because they need space to roam and they need to hunt. Leopards are very adaptable animals
but taking over their space is something no one wishes for if it was done to them. The final, most
important solution that is easily fixed is poaching. If Snow Leopard Trust is able to make awareness of
this crime, poachers might be able to see that what they do while poaching not only affects the leopard,
but the rest of nature as well. Allowing the public to understand that poaching could lead to the species’
endangerment or extinction could allow poachers to recognize that it is, in fact, an unethical occupation.
To sum up, the recommendations that are given to fix the problem are:
o A simple tracking device to monitor leopard population
o Protecting the leopards’ habitat
o To mMakeing awareness to help prevent or stop poaching

Conclusion
In conclusion, pProtecting leopards is the responsibility of everyone that cares about the Earth that we
all live in. The goal of the Snow Leopard Trust is to spread awareness of the problem in order to help
keep the species alive. There are a couple subspecies of leopards are near extinction and that is result of
humans’ greed. In order to bring back the leopards from being near extinct, changes have to be made.
Monitoring and tracking the leopards is a way to maintain a count of them. It also allows them to be
closely watched in order to keep them from harm. The monitoring and tracking devices will also help in
finding out what happened if anything were to harm the leopards. A different way to save leopards from
dying or being killed is by protecting their habitats. By leaving the regions uninhabited by humans, the
leopards are able to wander around wherever and however. Along with providing specific regions for
the leopards, the authorities and rangers are able to keep check of those who enters the regions.

References

https://bigcatrescue.org/saving-leopards/
https://www.worldwildlife.org/species/amur-leopard
https://www.africa-wildlife-detective.com/leopards.html http://www.bigcatallies.org/education/big-
cats-in-captivity/welfare-issues/
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/poaching
http://snowleopardconservancy.org/kids/text/endangered.htm
https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2016/leopard-11-29-2016.html
https://www.statisticbrain.com/endangered-species-statistics/
http://wwf.panda.org/?162501/Skin-of-rare-Amur-leopard-discovered-in-car