Research overview: clouded leopard and small-felid conflict in Southeast Asia

This overview reviews the comparatively understudied conflict between people and smaller wild cats, including clouded leopards, in Southeast Asian forest-agriculture mosaics. It synthesises scattered evidence on depredation of poultry and small livestock, retaliatory and incidental killing, snaring bycatch, and the role of habitat conversion to plantations in increasing contact. The literature notes that smaller felids attract less research and conservation attention than big cats yet face conflict-related and trade-related threats, and that their secretive habits complicate study. The survey frames small-felid conflict as a neglected dimension of human-felid coexistence, highlighting data gaps and the need to extend conflict research and mitigation beyond the charismatic large cats to the wider felid guild.