The ten leopard skins case, why it's so important

I’ve been working on technical aspects of LeopardEye the last few days, some genuine progress; however, these gains tempered by the updates of the ten (leopard) skin case. Tempering back the other way, a nice positive, was a video call with the amazing Hana Raza (a bit about Hana in a previous Substack HERE) in Iraq, during the call we got the first live device under the LeopardEye umbrella operating there. It was a nice moment. It’s a test device using 4G but as we get closer and closer to satellite use, it gave me a boost that Hana and her team’s efforts to protect the Persian leopard and the wildlife in the great cat’s habitat in Iraq can be helped by how we are going forward with LeopardEye. I’m looking forward to bringing updates on this as expansion happens and how the Persian leopard is shaping as a flagship.

Meanwhile, sweeps giving updates on the ten skin case come through every few hours. The sheer volume of skins and other body parts involved, and the total number of leopards killed by this alleged nexus, is not known but it fits in with WPSI (Wildlife Protection Society of India) figures which show almost as many known poaching/seizure incidents this year as the whole of last year — and we’re not even at the end of August. As always, I hate to think what the true toll is, it goes on and on, every year just far too many.

There’s been a lot of findings, evidence is adding up. We’ll have a full case study at Blood of the Leopard in a few days and I’ll have a detailed Substack piece ready at the same time. Right now, I’d like you to ponder this:

We live in a world where biodiversity is declining at unprecedented rates. We clap our little hands when we get tiny increments of improvement in tiger number while so many other species around them are collapsing. Within it all is a murky world where poachers, traffickers, informants and wildlife crime operatives (often undercover), communicate in a variety of ways. This world is built on a den of dishonesty and illegal activity. It’s not a good place. Believe me, it’s really not.

What is too often lost in the consciousness of that world and by those on the fringes of it, is the sheer brutality and cruelty taking place in illegal wildlife trade. The ten skin case has exposed:

• The poachers used one of the most brutal types of snare, the heavy-duty claw trap, to catch the leopards.

• When reaching the trapped big cats, if the leopards were still alive, the poachers used nets to immobilize the animals.

• The leopards were then beaten to death with blunt instruments.

The poachers’ modus operandi has been told by several media outlets including HERE.

There’s a famous line in the movie A Few Good Men where the character played by Jack Nicholson says “you can’t handle the truth” — it sadly sums up wildlife trafficking, most people just turn away from the truth, the horror of what is happening. I can’t afford to do that. I face it every day. More than one young person entering anti-poaching/trafficking has said to me they start to feel isolated very quickly. Some persevere. Many don’t.

Those who do persevere do so because they care deeply. In a recent LinkedIn piece, illegal wildlife trade expert Devendra Singh Rathore, a man I know who does care deeply, wrote:

This is why combating wildlife crime requires more than enforcement alone. It also calls for awareness, community engagement, and addressing the misconceptions that continue to place wildlife at risk.

I’m including in that the need increase understanding of just how brutal and cruel wildlife crime is. Not being able to handle the truth cannot be an excuse.

The ten skin case is an important one for many reasons, not the least for exposing the cruelty involved in the killing of those leopards. It’s because of this that it’s easy to get out of bed early, there’s so much needing to be done and there’s urgency around that. If effort and support prevents one such incident such as that described in the poacher’s modus operandi above, then it’s worth it.

But we need to stop much, much more.

Further updates in a few days.