Bangladesh's Creative Conservation Alliance (CCA) issued pictures of the leopard emerging from lush green bush, celebrating the "evidence that these elusive big cats still persist" in the forested hills where Bangladesh borders India and Myanmar.

"We have to ensure the protection of the species so that it doesn't become extinct," CCA research officer Sourav Chakma told AFP on Thursday.

Leopards are listed as vulnerable as a species globally, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), but critically endangered in the South Asian country of more than 170 million people, warning its population may no longer be viable.

Zoologist Monirul Khan, of Jahangirnagar University, said previous reports of the elusive cats had been based on paw prints and fleeting sightings in the forest.

"As an extremely rare and secretive species, the latest sighting is very significant", Khan said.

"It highlights the importance of the remaining natural forest in the Chittagong Hill Tracts as a reserve of wildlife habitat."

The predator was once widely seen in forested areas. Habitat loss, lack of prey and poaching are key contributors to the loss of leopards, experts say.

Bangladesh is also home to tigers, now found only in the vast Sundarbans mangrove forests that straddle the border with India.

On the Bangladesh side, the latest survey released in October 2024 recorded 125 tigers, up from 114 in 2019.

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CCA INTERNATIONAL