An Unlikely Mother: The First Reported Case of a Wild Leopard Cub Adoption

Panthera

Unlikely adoption among animals, both wild and domestic, make for lighthearted and exceedingly popular news stories. Admittedly or not, most of us have gushed over viral videos and photos showing both inter and intraspecies adoptions, such as domestic dogs who have adopted orphaned piglets, or lionesses who have assumed responsibility for the young of another pride member.

Interestingly, while this phenomenon is common among mammals and frequently highlighted in the press, adoption among big cats in the wild occurs less often than one might expect.

Wild Leopards Threatened by Religious Tradition in Africa

CNN (Nkepile Mabuse and Vanessa Ko)

A growing religion in southern Africa is posing a threat to the survival of wild leopards.

For the Nazareth Baptist Church, also known as the Shembe, leopards are seen as a symbol of pride, beauty and wealth, while their skins are viewed as essential attire for church elders who wear them around their necks during traditional ceremonies.

A mixture of Christianity and Zulu culture, the Shembe is one of the biggest traditional religious groups in South Africa with around 5 million members. There are fears from conservationists that as the church grows, Africa’s leopards, already listed as “near threatened” by the International Union Conservation of Nature (IUCN), will be pushed towards extinction.

Cats’ Stripes and Spots Are Tracked to a Gene

The New York Times (Sindya N. Bhanoo)

The gene that produces the striking dark stripes on tabby cats is also responsible for the spots on cheetahs, a new study reports.

And a mutation of this same gene causes the stripes in cats and spots on cheetahs to become blotchy.

“Nobody had any idea what the genes were that were involved in these things,” said Stephen O’Brien, a geneticist now at St. Petersburg University in Russia and one of the researchers who led the study. “When the feline genome became available, we began to look for them.”

Asia’s New Taste for African Lion Bones Threatens Conservation Efforts

The Herald Sun

Lion bones have become a hot commodity for their use in Asian traditional medicine, driving up exports from South Africa to the East and creating new fears of the survival of the species.

Conservationists are already angry over lion trophy hunting.

The skeletons are mostly shipped to Vietnam and Laos, feeding conservationists’ fears that the market will drive up lion poaching – just as the illegal hunting of rhinos escalates for their horns, also popular in Asian traditional remedies.