- Leopards are the second-most traded wildcat in the world, despite their international commercial trade being prohibited under CITES, the international wildlife trade agreement.
- Trophies and body parts — primarily skins, claws, bones and teeth — are the most traded, according to CITES data. However, other data indicate that illegal trade in skins and body parts is widespread in Asia and Africa.
- Southern African countries, particularly South Africa, Namibia and Zimbabwe, are major exporters of leopard parts, while the U.S. is the largest importer, according to data from CITES. But China remains a hotspot for trafficked leopard parts, including skin and claws.
- The legal and illegal trade, coupled with losses to habitat and prey, has caused widespread declines in leopard populations across their ranges in Asia and Africa.
Leopards — solitary, enigmatic, nocturnal predators with golden fur splashed with dark rosette spots — have the widest range of any big cat. They’re found in a variety of habitats — rainforests, rocky mountains, grasslands and deserts — in both warm and cold climates. Worldwide, there are eight subspecies of leopards categorized based on their range and appearance.
Historical records show they once extended across Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, but today, their range has shrunk dramatically. Leopards (Panthera pardus) are now found in parts of Central Asia, South Asia and Africa, and in small regions of East and Southeast Asia. India, with nearly 14,000 wild leopards, is the country with the highest leopard population.
Despite being listed on Appendix I of CITES, the global wildlife trade agreement, which prohibits their commercial international trade, leopards are the second-most traded wildcats after lions, whose commercial trade is regulated. Yet, there’s little attention given to the threats these big cats face, especially with a persistent demand for their body parts leading to their poaching.
“There’s a lot more attention and reporting from governments on tigers compared to leopards,” Debbie Banks, campaign leader for tigers and wildlife crime at the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), a U.K.-based NGO that investigates environmental crime, told Mongabay. “They are the most prevalent species in trade as it relates to seizures,” she said, adding that for every tiger killed, EIA’s data show three to five leopards are killed.
Leopard body parts, especially skins, claws, teeth and bones, are in great demand. In China and parts of Southeast Asia, they’re considered a symbol of wealth and are used as home decor. Leopard bones are used in traditional medicine formulations, sometimes as a replacement for tiger bone. Leopard skin is part of the traditional regalia in some communities in Africa and was historically part of the traditional Tibetan costume called chuba. There’s also a trade for leopard trophies, which are often legal and recorded on CITES.
What do the numbers say about the trade?
Data from CITES, which records all legal international trade in listed wildlife species, show that 8,303 trade permits were issued for leopards from 2000 to 2024, making them the most traded big cat listed on CITES Appendix I. Hunting trophies comprise the largest number of permits, at 4,165, followed by 1,099 permits for skins and 933 for skulls. The number of permits doesn’t translate to the number of individuals traded; each permit may include multiple individuals or their body parts, and several permits may contain parts from the same individual.
A 2016 report by the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) on the trophy hunting industry found that more than 10,000 leopard trophies were legally traded worldwide between 2004 and 2014, with leopards being the most imported trophies among big cats.
According to data from CatByte, an online platform that collects data about the legal and illegal trade in big cats, between 2000 and 2023 (the most recent year in the database), an estimated 60,830 leopard commodities were recorded. Around 91% of these (55,583) originated from wild-sourced leopards. Only 5% of the commodities came from captive-bred leopards, which primarily included live leopards traded to zoos and circuses.
CatByte data also reveal that between 2000 and 2023, almost a third (32%) of all trade, both legal and illegal, was related to leopard derivatives, which include any processed part of an animal. Claws, which are in demand in traditional medicine and are often substituted for tiger claws, came in second at 17%, with most of them being sourced illegally. Leopard skins made up 6% of all traded commodities, mostly through illegal channels.
Data from EIA’s Global Environmental Crime Tracker, which tracks international wildlife crime, shows that at least 5,995 whole leopards, or their equivalents in products, have been seized since the year 2000. When combined with data from India, Banks puts this number at a minimum of 6,400 leopards. CatByte data show 738 leopard product seizures between 2020 and 2025, with claws being the most commonly seized commodity, followed by skins and bones.
Africa, too, has a booming trade in leopard parts, said Ofir Drori, founding director of the EAGLE Network, an NGO that specializes in wildlife investigations and law enforcement. He said each year, they seize about 30 leopard skins from traffickers in West, Central and East Africa, which is a fraction of the actual trade. “Traffickers are usually doing leopard skins; it’s good business for them … I definitely see an increase in it,” Drori told Mongabay. A 2025 study from Côte d’Ivoire found that nearly half of the 46 markets surveyed sold leopard parts, mostly skins.
Trade hotspots
Based on the number of permits, the CITES database shows that the U.S., the world’s largest importer of wildlife, tops the list of legal importers of leopards, followed by South Africa and France. Southern African countries — South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia — were the top three exporters in the legal leopard trade.
However, Banks from EIA said their work in Asia points to China being a major importer of leopard parts. The country’s historical demand for leopard body parts has led to poaching and the trafficking of leopards in neighboring countries. “What we have documented over the years with partners in India and elsewhere is a sustained demand from China for leopard skin, leopard bone, teeth and claws,” she said.
A big part of the demand in China is for traditional medicine, as the country’s latest pharmacopeia permits the use of leopard parts in licensed traditional medicines and treatments. EIA’s research found at least 24 Chinese pharmaceutical companies listed leopard bones as an ingredient in their traditional medicines.
Southeast and East Asia seem to be the most imperiled leopard ranges, with two of the three subspecies there classified as critically endangered and one as endangered. A 2021 study in Indonesia documented 24 seizures involving endangered Javan leopards between 2011 and 2019, constituting an estimated 51 animals. Skins, claws and canine teeth were the most seized commodities.
“Indonesia’s leopards are in a lot of trouble,” study co-author Chris Shepherd, now a senior conservation advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity, a U.S.-based NGO, told Mongabay. “Leopards are running out of natural prey, so they’re coming in and eating things that they’re not supposed to, but also, there’s money in leopards, so somebody’s going to kill them.”
In recent years, India has emerged as a hotspot for the illegal leopard trade, with the largest number of seizures — 2,527 in the last five years — recorded in the country, according to CatByte data. A 2022 report on the snaring of big cats in Asia revealed that nearly 245 leopards were caught in snares, the most for any cat, between 2012 and 2021, and 93% of the snares were set up outside protected areas. India topped the list with the highest number of big cat deaths due to snaring.
“I fear very much for leopards in Asia, particularly in Southeast Asia, but in South Asia as well, because they just silently slip away, as has happened with populations in Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia, unless they get the attention they deserve,” Banks said. “There is a decision and a choice that the government of China can make, and if necessary at the highest levels, to end the use of leopard bone for medicinal purposes. So that is a gift that China can give to wild leopards.”
The ‘forgotten cat’ undergoing a ‘silent extinction’
Despite their wide range, leopards are classified as vulnerable on the IUCN Red List due to habitat loss, decline in their prey base, and the thriving trade in their body parts. They’re the only big cat species whose conservation status has nosedived in recent years, with the species moving from near threatened in 2008 to vulnerable in 2015.
Studies show these felids have lost as much as two-thirds of their historical range in Africa and about 84% in Asia; one subspecies, the Indochinese leopard, has been wiped out from nearly all of its habitat. As their habitat shrinks, leopards are increasingly coming into conflict with humans, preying on their livestock and being killed in retaliation. Of the eight subspecies, three are classified as critically endangered, and two as endangered.
Drori from the EAGLE Network called the leopard’s decline a “silent extinction” because “it doesn’t get a lot of headlines … it’s not on people’s radar.” Part of that stems from the limited data available on leopards and their numbers, as well as the number of individuals being traded.
“It’s the forgotten cat left behind,” Banks said, “it’s just shrouded in mystery.”
In a report following the 2023 meeting of its standing committee, CITES noted a lack of specific information concerning seizure data related to illegal trade in Asian leopards, as its database groups all leopards together. It suggested CITES member countries submit ad hoc reports on the illegal trade in their jurisdictions before the next standing committee meeting, held this past February.
Banks said the reporting, presented earlier this year, was “pretty dismal” because not all the available data had been reported to CITES. She said there’s “not enough time and attention going into addressing the lack of enforcement, the lack of demand reduction” regarding the leopard trade, especially with the trade convention’s main summit, COP20, coming up this November.
“Back in 1999, the CITES Secretariat warned parties that leopards in Asia were at risk of going the same way as the tiger,” she said. “That is exactly what has unfolded, with leopards being the most prevalent of the Asian big cats seized in trade. The question is, are the parties to CITES COP20 in 2025 prepared to take bold action before it is too late?”
Banner image: A leopard in Panna National Park, India. Image by Harsh Tank via Unsplash (Public domain).
Citations:
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