Research overview: clouded leopard camera-trapping in Southeast Asia

Clouded leopards, both the mainland and Sunda species, are secretive, partly arboreal forest cats whose cloud-shaped coat blotches allow individual identification from camera-trap images. This overview surveys efforts to detect and study them across Southeast Asian and Himalayan forests, where dense vegetation, low densities, and elusive habits make captures scarce. It discusses placement strategies on trails and ridgelines, the challenge of their semi-arboreal behavior for ground-based cameras, and the use of occupancy and capture-recapture methods given sparse data. The overview also covers what camera surveys reveal about clouded leopard distribution, activity, habitat needs, and responses to logging and hunting. As a poorly known but threatened felid, the clouded leopard exemplifies how camera trapping incrementally builds knowledge of rare, cryptic forest cats.