Saving the Arabian leopard through conservation breeding
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The international campaign to return the Arabian leopard to its ancestral home amid the sandstone outcrops of northern Saudi Arabia is entering a new phase.
To understand, it helps if you think of our work as a story in three parts. Part One, recognizing the risk of Arabian leopards becoming extinct in the wild, the Royal Commission for AlUla was given the mandate for the conservation of Arabia’s Critically Endangered apex predator.
Extensive research on the remaining population in the wild was undertaken and RCU began stabilizing the captive population through conservation breeding, training specialists and bringing facilities up to international standards. The groundwork, basically.
Part Two, which we are just beginning, ramps up our ambitions. Creating the global breeding program strategy for the Arabian leopard, the construction of a brand-new breeding centre in AlUla’s Sharaan National Park, and the training of selected cats to prepare them for life in the wild.
Part Three, the culmination of our work, will come on that glorious day when Arabian leopards are released into the stark and majestic landscape of Sharaan, followed by a sustained conservation effort to grow their numbers across Arabia. This story stretches back much further: the Arabian leopard’s ancestors arrived in the peninsula some 500,000 years ago, journeying via the Great Rift Valley of Africa to reach the mountains of northern Arabia where they made their home and evolved into a subspecies specially adapted to the landscape.
A stalk-and-pounce predator, its slender build, short but powerful legs and long tail made it the perfect hunter in the mountains. The last half-century, though, has been incredibly difficult for the leopards, with their habitat shrinking, prey harder to find and increased human wildlife conflict.
Since 1996 the International Union for Conservation of Nature has categorized the Arabian leopard as Critically Endangered in the wild. Now there are thought to be only 120 still roaming free in the mountains of Oman and Yemen with none seen in Saudi Arabia for over a decade.
There are fewer Arabian leopards left in the wild than there are spots — known as rosettes — on a leopard’s coat. Perilous as the situation may be, we at RCU believe that we can take on the challenge to restore the leopards’ numbers, just as conservationists worldwide have done with species such as the California condor, Arabian oryx, Iberian lynx and Amur leopard. As with each of these incredible comeback stories, conservation breeding is essential for the Arabian leopard.
Perilous as the situation may be, we at RCU believe that we can take on the challenge to restore the leopards’ numbers, just as conservationists worldwide have done with species such as the California condor, Arabian oryx, Iberian lynx and Amur leopard
Jose Ferreira
In the past six years the leopard population at our breeding center in Taif, the Arabian Leopard Conservation Breeding Centre, has more than doubled from an initial 14 cats. Building on this success, we are able to advance to the next stage: the much larger multi-species breeding and rewilding facility in Sharaan.
This autumn, RCU will begin construction of the Arabian Leopard Rewilding Centre with the aim of transferring a number of leopards from Taif to Sharaan in the first quarter of 2026. This facility will be the first of its kind in the world to focus on rewilding as well as breeding.
It is here that, in time, keepers will select the leopards most suitable for release and begin training them for life on the outside in a world first for the subspecies.
We are working with IUCN and other partners to ensure the new enclosures are as natural as possible for this “rewilding” process, while also being state of the art in terms of technology. The facility will also have an exhibit area where schoolchildren can safely view these beautiful animals.
The more people know about the leopards, the more people will want to save them. Widening the base of support is vital to our work. As conservationists we love to care for our animals, and we love it when other people care about our animals too. Global attention also helps us to gain the interest of partners, researchers and other allies.
That is why we were so ardent in promoting Feb. 10, which the UN in 2023 adopted as International Day of the Arabian Leopard. And that is why, we have built global partnerships spanning the Arabian Leopard Fund, IUCN, Panthera, Catmosphere, Zoological Society of London, and European Association of Zoos and Aquaria.
Our newest partner is the Smithsonian Institution, the world’s largest museum, education, and research complex. One benefit of this partnership, once our own population is sufficient, will be the loaning of a breeding pair of Arabian leopards to the Smithsonian-run National Zoo in Washington as ambassadors for the subspecies.
The partnership is a two-way avenue for knowledge exchange, combining the Smithsonian’s globe-spanning conservation experience with RCU’s unmatched expertise on Arabian leopards.
Our in-house team brings decades of experience across fieldwork and conservation breeding and works directly with an exceptional network of global experts spanning IUCN, EAZA, the Amur Leopard and Tiger Alliance and the Caucasus Leopard Reintroduction Advisory Group.
This time of year, marks the start of a new mating season at the Taif breeding center. In three months or so we hope to see more beloved cubs entering the world — a world where someday they will roam free once again in AlUla. It’s a complicated journey, one where we cannot take success for granted. But we’re doing our best and step by step we’re getting there.
• Jose Ferreira is the conservation breeding and reintroduction director at the Royal Commission for AlUla.
