Species of Cats on the Verge of Extinction

1. Snow Leopard (Scientific Name: Unicia unicia or Panthrea unicia)

Snow leopard is a large cat inhabitant of the mountain ranges of alpine and subalpine areas that lie above the sea level in Central Asia. The physical appearance of this animal shows that it is suitable to adapt in the cold mountainous regions as its body is stocky with thick fur and the ears are small and in round shape, all these physical features help to minimize heat loss.

Snow leopards are carnivores that keenly hunt their prey and are an opportunistic feeder who feed on whatever flesh they come across. They are capable of hunting down animals that are much heavier than their own weight. Unfortunately, this beautiful member of cat family is today on the verge of extinction. It is listed on the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) Red List of Threatened Species as globally Endangered (EN). The worldwide snow leopard effective population size is suspected to be fewer than 2,500 which are 50 percent of the total population. Just some 3,500 and 7,000 snow leopards are surviving today.

2. Leopard (Scientific Name: Panthera pardus)

The Leopard is a medium sized wildcat that belongs to the “Big Cat” family. They are inhabited in various habitats across Africa, South America, parts of Europe and almost maximum parts of Asia as they are most adaptable as compared to other big cats. It is a lively and opportunistic hunter that hunts down habitats not utilized by other big felines.

They are seven different sub species whose appearance and geographic locations are not same. In that, African Leopard is the most common and extensive while the others like Amur Leopard, the Anatolian Leopard, the Barbary Leopard, the Sinai Leopard, the South Arabian Leopard and the Zanzibar Leopard are rare.

The leopard is today listed by the IUCN as an endangered animal in its natural environment. However, a number of leopard sub-species are considered to be either endangered or critically endangered in their natural habitats and Zanzibar Leopard is thought to be extinct now. This is due to the fact that these populations are either small or geographically isolated and are severely affected by local hunting and habitat loss.

 
3. Bengal Tiger (Scientific Name: Panthera tigris tigris)

The Bengal tiger, also known as Royal Bengal tiger is a subspecies of tiger found in dense forests and mangrove swamps and jungles across India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan as well as Myanmar and China. It is considered as the second largest tiger in the world after Siberian Tiger.

It has a yellow or light orange coat, with black or dark brown stripes and a white belly. They are carnivores who primarily hunt larger mammals including deer, wild boar, cattle and goats with no natural predators in its native environment because of its size and power.  But over the last century, the total number of tigers have drastically fallen mainly due to habitat losses caused by cutting down of forests and the extremely large-scale incidences of hunting by human poachers. The Royal Bengal tiger has been classified as an endangered species by the IUCN since 2010 as there are about only 2000 tigers left in Asia.

source