Overview
- Authorities verified 29 detections across 2024–2025 (13 last year and 16 this year) in the southern Thailand sanctuary, the first confirmed records since 1995.
- Footage of a female with a cub confirms active breeding, noteworthy for a species that typically produces only one offspring at a time.
- Panthera describes the effort as the largest focused survey for the species, with findings to inform a Panthera-led IUCN Red List review planned for early 2026.
- Conservationists urge strengthened protection of peat-swamp habitat and a formal threat assessment, citing risks from land conversion, pollution, overfishing, hunting, disease and potential trafficking.
- Researchers caution individual counts remain uncertain because the cats lack distinctive markings, though detections indicate a local concentration that may represent Thailand’s only known population.