🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

A small, cryptic population of cheetahs survives across the Sahara and Sahel of Northwest Africa, representing a distinct and critically endangered lineage adapted to extreme desert conditions. This o…

In South Africa, cheetahs persist in numerous small, fenced reserves too isolated to function as a natural population, so conservationists manage them collectively as a metapopulation by translocating…

TX2 refers to the global commitment, adopted at the 2010 St. Petersburg Tiger Summit, to double the number of wild tigers by 2022. This overview surveys the science behind the target and how progress…

Understanding why people poach, and what deters them, is essential to designing effective anti-poaching strategy. This overview surveys research on the economics and behavior of poaching, examining th…

A persistent trafficking route moves cheetah cubs from the Horn of Africa across the Gulf of Aden to markets on the Arabian Peninsula, where they are sold as exotic pets. This overview surveys researc…

Leopards are traded for their skins, bones, claws, and teeth across both Asia and Africa, driven by demand for fashion, status, traditional medicine, and ceremonial use. This overview surveys research…

Growing demand for lion bones, partly as a substitute for tiger parts in traditional medicine markets, has raised concern about new pressures on wild lions. This overview surveys research and policy a…

South Africa's legal export of lion skeletons, drawn largely from its captive lion industry, created a regulated trade in lion bones destined for Asian markets, and with it a controversial conservatio…

In 2017 the snow leopard was reclassified on the IUCN Red List from Endangered to Vulnerable, a decision based on revised population estimates and the difficulty of demonstrating that numbers had fall…

While tigers recovered in parts of South Asia, populations across mainland Southeast Asia, including Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, and much of Myanmar, collapsed toward functional extinction. This overview…

Central India holds a network of tiger reserves embedded in a matrix of forest, farmland, roads, and mines, making connectivity between reserves vital for genetic exchange and recolonization. This ove…

The Terai Arc Landscape, stretching along the India-Nepal border, is a flagship for corridor-based tiger conservation, aiming to link a chain of reserves through forest corridors so tigers can dispers…

Thousands of tigers are held in captive breeding operations, particularly in parts of East and Southeast Asia, fueling a long-running debate over whether legal or illegal trade in captive-bred tiger p…

Nepal became an early flagship for the tiger doubling agenda, reporting substantial population growth in its lowland Terai reserves such as Chitwan and Bardia. This overview surveys research on what d…

India has rebuilt tiger populations in reserves where they were lost by translocating wild tigers, most notably at Panna and Sariska, and this overview surveys the science of those efforts. Studies do…

After poaching wiped out tigers in two Indian reserves, Sariska and Panna, conservationists attempted to rebuild populations by translocating wild tigers from source reserves. This overview surveys th…

Tiger reserves, especially in India, embody a particular protected-area model built around strictly protected cores surrounded by multiple-use buffer zones, often combined with voluntary relocation of…

Monitoring the illegal trade in tiger parts relies heavily on analyzing seizures of skins, bones, claws, and other products intercepted by authorities. This overview surveys research, much of it compi…

Wildlife tourism, much of it built around charismatic big cats, generates revenue that can fund conservation and provide community benefits, but the distribution of those benefits strongly affects con…

Demand for big cat parts in traditional medicine, particularly bones believed to treat ailments, is a primary driver of poaching and trade affecting tigers, leopards, lions, and others. This overview…

The Amur leopard's range straddles the border between the Russian Far East and northeast China, making transboundary cooperation essential to its conservation. This overview surveys research and polic…

Many large carnivore landscapes span international borders, prompting the creation of transboundary protected areas, sometimes called peace parks, that link reserves across countries into larger conse…

Trophy hunting of lions is among the most contentious topics in carnivore conservation, and this overview surveys the science behind the debate. Research has examined how hunting older males can be su…

This sweeping review synthesized the global status of the world's largest carnivores, including big cats such as tigers, lions, and leopards, and documented that most are declining and have lost large…

Ripple WJ, Estes JA, Beschta RL, et al. · Science · 2014

This comprehensive edited volume brought together leading researchers to synthesize the science of wild cats, spanning felid evolution, behavior, ecology, and the full breadth of conservation challeng…

Macdonald DW, Loveridge AJ (eds) · 2010

This synthesis introduced the concept of Tiger Conservation Landscapes, mapping where tigers could still be found across Asia and classifying these areas by their potential to support recovery. The au…

Dinerstein E, Loucks C, Wikramanayake E, et al. · BioScience · 2007

This range-wide assessment compiled distribution and population data to show that cheetahs have been lost from the large majority of their historical range and now number only a few thousand adults, w…

Durant SM, Mitchell N, Groom R, et al. · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2017

This regional survey systematically searched protected areas across West Africa to determine where lions still survived, and found the situation far worse than expected. Lions had vanished from most o…

Henschel P, Coad L, Burton C, et al. · PLoS ONE · 2014

This study used satellite imagery and human population data to map how much of Africa's savannah remains suitable for lions, viewing the continent through the needs of a wide-ranging predator. The aut…

Riggio J, Jacobson A, Dollar L, et al. · Biodiversity and Conservation · 2013

Using long-term field data from Indian reserves, this study tested how strongly tiger numbers are governed by the abundance of wild ungulate prey. The authors combined prey density surveys with camera…

Karanth KU, Nichols JD, Kumar NS, Link WA, Hines JE · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2004