A new range-wide study integrating density modeling with habitat suitability offers the most rigorous leopard population estimate to date — replacing a 1988 CITES estimate long considered inflated. The research finds leopard numbers substantially lower than previously assumed, and shows that in more than half of trophy-hunting countries, current quotas exceed the science-based sustainable offtake threshold. Rather than an argument against hunting, the study is a case for evidence-based quota-setting: it gives wildlife managers spatially explicit targets for where hunting pressure should ease and where habitat and prey restoration would do the most good.
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