The Zanzibar leopard is an

African leopard The African leopard (''Panthera pardus pardus'') is the nominate subspecies of the leopard, native to many countries in Africa. It is widely distributed in most of sub-Saharan Africa, but the historical range has been Habitat fragmentation, fragm ...

(''Panthera pardus pardus'')

population Population is a set of humans or other organisms in a given region or area. Governments conduct a census to quantify the resident population size within a given jurisdiction. The term is also applied to non-human animals, microorganisms, and pl ...

Unguja Unguja (also referred to as "Zanzibar Island" or simply "Zanzibar", in – as mentioned in The ''Periplus of the Erythraean Sea'') is the largest and most populated island of the Zanzibar archipelago, in Tanzania. History Geography Unguja is ...

Island in the

Zanzibar Zanzibar is a Tanzanian archipelago off the coast of East Africa. It is located in the Indian Ocean, and consists of many small Island, islands and two large ones: Unguja (the main island, referred to informally as Zanzibar) and Pemba Island. ...

archipelago,

Tanzania Tanzania, officially the United Republic of Tanzania, is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It is bordered by Uganda to the northwest; Kenya to the northeast; the Indian Ocean to the east; Mozambique and Malawi to t ...

, that is considered

extirpated Local extinction, also extirpation, is the termination of a species (or other taxon) in a chosen geographic area of study, though it still exists elsewhere. Local extinctions are contrasted with global extinctions. Local extinctions mark a chan ...

due to persecution by local hunters and loss of habitat. It was the island's largest terrestrial

carnivore A carnivore , or meat-eater (Latin, ''caro'', genitive ''carnis'', meaning meat or "flesh" and ''vorare'' meaning "to devour"), is an animal or plant Plants are the eukaryotes that form the Kingdom (biology), kingdom Plantae; they ar ...

and

apex predator An apex predator, also known as a top predator or superpredator, is a predator at the top of a food chain, without natural predators of its own. Apex predators are usually defined in terms of trophic dynamics, meaning that they occupy the hig ...

. Increasing conflict between people and leopards in the 20th century led to the demonization of the Zanzibar leopard and determined attempts to exterminate it. Efforts to develop a leopard conservation program in the mid-1990s were shelved when wildlife researchers concluded that there was little prospect for the population's long-term survival. In 2018, a leopard was allegedly recorded by a

camera trap A camera trap is a camera that is automatically triggered by motion in its vicinity, like the presence of an animal or a human being. It is typically equipped with a motion sensor—usually a passive infrared (PIR) sensor or an active infrared ...

, thus renewing hopes for the population's survival, although some experts remain skeptical.

Taxonomy

The Zanzibar leopard was described as a leopard

subspecies In Taxonomy (biology), biological classification, subspecies (: subspecies) is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (Morphology (biology), morpholog ...

Reginald Innes Pocock Reginald Innes Pocock, (4 March 1863 – 9 August 1947) was a British zoologist. Pocock was born in Clifton, Bristol, the fourth son of Rev. Nicholas Pocock and Edith Prichard. He began showing interest in natural history at St. Edward's ...

, who proposed the

scientific name In Taxonomy (biology), taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, both of which use Latin gramm ...

''Panthera pardus adersi'' in 1932. Following molecular genetic analysis of leopard samples, it was subsumed to the

(''P. p. pardus'') in 1996. However, some authors continue to use ''P. p. adersi''.

Evolutionary history

The Zanzibar leopard population is thought to have evolved in isolation from mainland African leopards since at least the end of the Last Ice Age, when the island was separated from mainland Tanzania by rising

sea level Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an mean, average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal Body of water, bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical ...

s. The

founder effect In population genetics, the founder effect is the loss of genetic variation that occurs when a new population is established by a very small number of individuals from a larger population. It was first fully outlined by Ernst Mayr in 1942, us ...

and

adaptation In biology, adaptation has three related meanings. Firstly, it is the dynamic evolutionary process of natural selection that fits organisms to their environment, enhancing their evolutionary fitness. Secondly, it is a state reached by the p ...

to local conditions produced a smaller leopard than its continental relatives, and one whose rosettes have partially disintegrated into spots. However, despite these visible differences from the mainland populations, the genetic differentiation of this population is much less than is seen for the populations presently treated as genuine subspecies, all of which occur outside of

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

; as such, all of the African populations of leopards are considered to belong to a single subspecies, including the population on Zanzibar.

Behaviour and ecology

Very little is known about the Zanzibar leopard's behaviour and ecology. It has never been studied in the wild, and the last confirmed sighting of a living leopard was in the early 1980s. Most

zoologists This is a list of notable zoologists who have published names of new taxa under the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature. A * Abe – Tokiharu Abe (1911–1996) * Abeille de Perrin, Ab. – Elzéar Abeille de Perrin (1843–1910) * ...

have since presumed the Zanzibar leopard to be extinct or very nearly so. Only six skins were deposited at museums, including the

type specimen In biology, a type is a particular wikt:en:specimen, specimen (or in some cases a group of specimens) of an organism to which the scientific name of that organism is formally associated. In other words, a type is an example that serves to ancho ...

of ''P. p. adersi'' in the

Natural History Museum, London The Natural History Museum in London is a museum that exhibits a vast range of specimens from various segments of natural history. It is one of three major museums on Exhibition Road in South Kensington, the others being the Science Museum (Lo ...

, and a much-faded mounted specimen in the Zanzibar Museum. However, Zanzibar government statistics indicate that leopards were still being killed by hunters in the mid-1990s, and islanders continue to report sightings and

livestock Livestock are the Domestication, domesticated animals that are raised in an Agriculture, agricultural setting to provide labour and produce diversified products for consumption such as meat, Egg as food, eggs, milk, fur, leather, and wool. The t ...

predation Predation is a biological interaction in which one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common List of feeding behaviours, feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation ...

Conservation

Descriptions of the leopard and its habits by rural Zanzibaris are characterized by the widespread belief that

witches Witchcraft is the use of magic by a person called a witch. Traditionally, "witchcraft" means the use of magic to inflict supernatural harm or misfortune on others, and this remains the most common and widespread meaning. According to ''Enc ...

keep leopards and send them to harm or harass villagers. This belief includes elaborate ideas about how witches breed and train leopards to do their evil bidding. With these ideas, local farmers explain

by leopards, and more generally also their appearance "out of place" in the vicinity of farms and villages. The growth of human

and

agriculture Agriculture encompasses crop and livestock production, aquaculture, and forestry for food and non-food products. Agriculture was a key factor in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created ...

in the 20th century was largely responsible for this state of affairs, as people encroached on leopard

habitat In ecology, habitat refers to the array of resources, biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species' habitat can be seen as the physical manifestation of its ...

and prey base. Increasing conflict between humans and leopards led to a series of campaigns to exterminate the latter. These campaigns were localized at first, but became island-wide after the

Zanzibar Revolution The Zanzibar Revolution (; ) began on 12 January 1964 and led to the overthrow of the Sultan of Zanzibar Jamshid bin Abdullah and his mainly Arab government by the island's majority Black African population. Zanzibar was an ethnically di ...

of 1964, when a combined anti-witchcraft and leopard-killing campaign was launched under the leadership of a witchfinder. The long-term result of this campaign and the subsequent classification of the leopard as "

vermin Vermin (colloquially varmint(s) or varmit(s)) are pests or nuisance animals that spread diseases and destroy crops, livestock, and property. Since the term is defined in relation to human activities, which species are included vary by regi ...

" brought the leopard population to the brink of

extinction Extinction is the termination of an organism by the death of its Endling, last member. A taxon may become Functional extinction, functionally extinct before the death of its last member if it loses the capacity to Reproduction, reproduce and ...

. However, alleged leopard sightings are still being reported, and islanders believe that the Zanzibar leopard is still alive. By the mid-1990s, the Zanzibar leopard population was considered extinct. In 1997 and 2001, rumors circulated about the discovery of leopard scat, but both samples were lost before they could be analyzed. A leopard conservation program was drafted by the

CARE Care may refer to: Organizations and projects * CARE (New Zealand), Citizens Association for Racial Equality, a former New Zealand organisation * CARE (England) West Midlands, Central Accident Resuscitation Emergency team, a team of doctors & ...

-funded Jozani-Chwaka Bay Conservation Project, but abandoned in 1997 when wildlife researchers failed to find evidence for the leopard. Local wildlife officials, however, remained more optimistic about the leopard's survival, and some Zanzibaris have proposed approaching alleged leopard keepers in order to ask them to display their leopards to paying visitors. Villagers sometimes offer to take tourists or researchers to see "domesticated" leopards in return for cash, but so far none of these "kept leopard chases" has been known to end in a successful sighting.Marshall, S. (1994). ''The Status of the Zanzibar Leopard''. SIT Tanzania & Commission for Natural Resources, Zanzibar.Selkow, B. (1995). ''A Survey of Villager Perceptions of the Zanzibar Leopard''. SIT Tanzania & Commission for Natural Resources, Zanzibar. These conflicting perceptions of the Zanzibar leopard's status and the possibility of its conservation have yet to be reconciled, presenting a dilemma that has been highlighted by researchers. In 2018, a leopard was recorded on Unguja Island by a

set during filming of the

Animal Planet Animal Planet (stylized in all lowercase since 2018) is an American multinational pay television channel focusing on the animal kingdom owned by the Warner Bros. Discovery Networks unit of Warner Bros. Discovery. First established on June 1 ...

series '' Extinct or Alive''. Some authorities do not consider this video to be reliable evidence due to the exact locality of the video being unknown, and few reliable sources have picked up on it. However, its author ( Forrest Galante) has defended its authenticity. Although the footage definitely shows a leopard, the exact pattern of rosettes remains unclear, and it could be a feral African leopard introduced to Zanzibar. DNA evidence may be the only way to verify this video.

References

External links