Endangered West African leopards show signs of recovery, despite odds. ‘It’s a win’

It’s been difficult to monitor West African leopards in Benin’s Pendjari National Park: It’s a large wilderness area, situated within a hotspot of armed conflict. The park is among the last strongholds for this geographically distinct leopard population — but a recent study shared hopeful news.

Leopard density in the park increased over a six-year period, according to a study published in the journal Global Ecology and Conservation. The park has been managed by the nonprofit African Parks since 2017 in partnership with the government — and this conservation effort seems to be working.

“It’s a win,” said study lead author Marine Drouilly, a biologist with Panthera, the global wild cat conservation non-profit.

West African leopards are geographically separated from other African leopard (Panthera pardus pardus) populations. In 2025, they were listed as regionally endangered on the IUCN Red List, after suffering a 50% decline over the past two decades. Numbers are estimated at just 354 across West Africa. In addition to Pendjari, important strongholds include the Niokolo-Koba–Badiar landscape in Senegal and the Guinea, Taï and Comoé National Parks in Côte d’Ivoire and Mole National Park in Ghana.

A rapidly growing human population across West Africa means wildlife habitat is disappearing and becoming more fragmented, isolating already small leopard populations, Drouilly said, while widespread bushmeat hunting leaves leopards without enough prey.

There’s a growing threat from poachers continent-wide, as leopards are targeted for their spotted skins, canine teeth, bones and other body parts,  killed to supply the illegal wildlife trade in Africa and Southeast Asia. In West Africa, burgeoning use of talismans made with small pieces of leopard skin adds to demand, Drouilly said.

Pendjari NP lies within the W-Arly-Pendjari (WAP) Complex, a sprawling mosaic of five national parks, numerous hunting reserves and buffer zones across Benin, Burkina Faso and Niger. It’s a World Heritage Site; At 27,000 square kilometers (10,425 square miles) — an area about the size of Haiti — the complex is one of the largest conservation landscapes in West Africa and a vital refuge for numerous species that are in danger of extinction.

This includes three critically endangered species: West African lions (Panthera leo leo); up to 90% of the region’s remaining forest elephants (Loxodonta cyclotis); the last known population of Northwest African cheetahs (Acinonyx jubatus hecki); and it shelters a key population of West African leopards.

But over the past decade, non-state armed groups operating in the Sahel have infiltrated this remote wilderness area, threatening wildlife, exacerbating existing pressures and interfering with conservation efforts.

In the face of security threats, African Parks maintains a strong field presence of rangers as well as an anti-poaching unit, with support from the Benin Armed Forces and aerial surveillance, study co-author Hugues Akpona, a regional manager with the organization, told Mongabay in an email.

The team, he said, is restoring habitat, bolstering prey populations and managing key water sources within the park. They’ve also had measurable success engaging with communities to build trust by involving them in decision making and by supporting economic development.

Their dedication and hard work are paying off, Drouilly said, noting that the study has lessons for conservation in other conflict zones.

Slight increase in leopard density is a sign of hope

To find out how leopards were faring within Pendjari NP, a team of ecologists, rangers and researchers began biennial camera trap surveys in 2017, the first long-term study of leopards in West Africa.

When the researchers analyzed data from 2017-2023, they expected to see a decline in leopard numbers, especially from 2022, when attacks by armed groups around the region intensified and parts of Pendjari became difficult to access.

Instead, leopard density showed a small but perceptible increase over the six-year period, going from 0.62 to 2.08 leopards per 100 km² (38.6 mi²). This suggests the park’s leopard population is growing, though, researchers couldn’t estimate a total population size. With so few leopards left across the whole of West Africa, even a small rise in density is welcome news, Drouilly said.

“Even if it’s only a slight increase and the [leopard] density remains relatively low [compared with Southern Africa] … It’s significant,” Drouilly said. “We were very, very happy.”

The researchers also found that survival was moderately high, indicating a small but recovering population. However, the survey failed to detect any cubs, which was concerning to them.

Armed groups threaten wildlife and disrupt conservation

The security crisis in the border region between Benin, Burkina Faso and Niger is the “principal challenge” facing the national park, study co-author Hugues Akpona told Mongabay in an email.

Armed groups, notably Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin and, to a lesser extent, the Islamic State Sahel Province, have infiltrated the WAP Complex, moving down from Mali and Burkina Faso, according to a report by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime.

Taking advantage of the wilderness area’s remoteness and dense forest cover, the extremist groups tap into established smuggling networks, using the protected areas as a base and as a place to hide hostages, the report noted. They also traffic people, goods and guns across borders, according to the Africa-based Institute for Security Studies.

The dire security situation makes it hard to keep wildlife safe and implement conservation actions, and the presence of armed extremist groups makes working in the park dangerous. In July 2024, an armed group attacked and killed five African Parks rangers and seven members of the Benin Armed Forces in W NP.

Akpona, who serves as regional operations manager (West Africa) at African Parks, said: “Insecurity today represents not only a direct threat, but also a structural factor that weakens the overall conservation system and reduces the effectiveness of management strategies that are normally applied under stable conditions.” He said conflict makes it difficult to carry out monitoring and other work.

For example, in the 2021 leopard survey, the team set up 81 camera traps, but in 2023, they could only set 50, in just a quarter of the 2021 survey area. That meant they couldn’t survey prime leopard habitat along the Pendjari River, Drouilly said. Even within surveyed areas, the presence of armed groups makes it difficult to regularly check camera traps, change batteries or replace any that are stolen or damaged by wildlife.

The team employs various strategies to get around security constraints, including camera traps that were designed by Panthera to withstand harsh field conditions for extended periods without maintenance.

More than 100 rangers have learned how to deploy camera traps, and their skill and commitment yields high-quality data, Akpona said. The team is also looking at monitoring methods to complement camera trap surveys, he added, such as eDNA: collecting fur and feces to identify leopard presence.

Still, the increase in leopard density shows that conservation efforts are working, Akpona said, and their efforts continue to yield positive results, for leopards, the wider ecosystem and communities living around the complex.

The level of community engagement, measured through the Community Conservation Index, rose to 81% in 2025, Akpona said.

Predators need prey to thrive. So in 2024, African Parks began rebuilding key antelope species including hartebeast (Alcelaphus buselaphus), waterbuck (Kobus ellipsiprymnus), korrigum (Damaliscus lunatus korrigum) and kob (Kobus kob).

“If you continue to stay on the ground and you continue to protect those species, you can have positive outcomes,” Panthera’s Drouilly said. “It’s not just supporting biodiversity conservation. It’s also providing livelihoods and stability in these regions for the people. So that’s really important.”

Concern for leopards across the range

Unfortunately, the outlook for leopards in other parts of the WAP Complex appears more fragile, Drouilly said, though, current information is scant. She noted that a 2021 survey in the Benin sector of the transborder WAP National Park — also managed by African Parks since 2020 — failed to detect leopards.

In the Niger and Burkina Faso sectors of WAP and Burkina Faso’s Arly National Park, there’s very little management; aerial observations and satellite data show the land is now heavily overgrazed by cattle, Drouilly said.

This makes the persistence of leopards in Pendjari — even at low density — all the more important.

“So if at some point we manage to secure the full area, then animals will be able to expand again and recolonize those areas,” Drouilly said.

Globally, leopards are listed as vulnerable on the IUCN Red List, with subspecies across much of their range in Africa and Asia declining. Supremely adaptable, yet rarely seen, they fly below the radar — and that’s part of the problem, said Andrew Stein, who’s served as lead author on the leopard’s IUCN Red List assessment since 2016.

“Because they’re so secretive, the assumption is that they’ll be fine. And what we’ve learned … is that they’re not,” said Stein, who founded and directs CLAWS Conservancy, a Botswana-based nonprofit, who was not involved in the study.

He called the hopeful findings “really exciting,” a rare piece of good news in a largely unknown but high-risk region for leopards.

“One of the things with leopards is that you give them a chance, you give them a little bit of space, and if there’s wild prey available, they can come back, just as this paper suggests,” Stein said.

Banner image: A leopard in Pendjari NP, in 2022. Camera traps were placed along likely travel routes and positioned to photograph both sides of the leopards to aid with identification. The researchers identified 30 individual leopards from their unique spot patterns. Image courtesy of ZSL-CCI/Panthera/APN-Pendjari National Park.

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Citations:

Drouilly, M., Woodgate, Z., Horion, R., Ipavec, A., Durant, S. M., Rostro-García, S., … Henschel, P. (2026). Survival in uncertainty: Population dynamics of a key endangered Leopard population in West Africa amid escalating security challenges. Global Ecology and Conservation, 67, e04203. doi:10.1016/j.gecco.2026.e04203

Drouilly, M., Ipavec, A., Grente, O., Horion, R., Ouindeyama, A., Henschel, P., … Durant, S. M. (2025). Spotted! Remote camera traps used in a novel design reveal a perilous situation for the critically endangered northwest African cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus hecki) in a conflict‐affected protected area in Benin. Ecological Solutions and Evidence, 6(2). doi:10.1002/2688-8319.70036

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Cite this article

Ruth Kamnitzer (2026). Endangered West African leopards show signs of recovery, despite odds. ‘It’s a win’. Mongabay Conservation news. DOI: https://doi.org/10.66709/news-322381

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