A wild Sunda clouded leopard was recently trapped and fitted with a satellite collar for the first time ever, as part of a collaborative project between the Sabah Wildlife Department (SWD), WildCRU and the Danau Girang Field Centre (DGFC).

On Sunday 15 September, early morning, a male Sunda clouded leopard weighing 25 kgs, was caught in one of our traps set up along the Kinabatangan River, Sabah, Malaysia in the vicinity of DGFC. Rarely seen, Sunda clouded leopards are amongst some of the most elusive and secretive of the world’s wild cats, and as such, remain one of the least understood. The leopard was fitted with a satellite collar to provide us with crucial information on its movements in the Kinabatangan landscape. It should send a location every 20 minutes for about 4 to 6 months, enabling us to determine its home range and how it is able to move through the fragmented landscape. Incredibly, a few days later, we caught another individual, an old female, weighing only 9 kgs. She was too small and too old to collar, but we have been documenting her in the Kinabatangan since 2010, using camera traps.

SWD, DGFC and WildCRU wish to thank Sime Darby Foundation for their support and for providing a grant of MYR 1.46 Million towards our project on the conservation of the Sunda clouded leopard and sympatric carnivores in Sabah. Additional funding and support are provided by Atlanta Zoo, Houston Zoo, Recanati-kaplan Foundation, Robertson Foundation, Point Defiance Zoo and Rufford Foundation.

Sept 21, 2013 News release from Danau Girang Field Centre