DICE PhD candidate Hadi Al Hikmani‘s research has discovered that rare Arabian leopards, the largest population of which reside in Oman, are being forced out by an influx of harvesters looking for fresh sources of incense, that most valuable ingredient used in the manufacture of perfume and incense.
Reported for the New Scientist by Kate Karáth, Hikmani’s research shows that people not only disturb the leopards, but also hunt and scare away their natural prey, the gazelle and the ibex. This is compounded by loss of habitat from livestock overgrazing and desertification, which means leopards have more limited space for manoeuvre. Closer association with humans can only set to create more conflicts as the leopards are also known to hunt camels. Al Hikmani fears that people might not be willing to turn a blind eye on lost camel livestock in the long run.
To discover more about the Arabian leopards in Oman, Al Hikmani and his research team installed more than 100 camera traps between 2011 and 2015 around the Dhofar mountains and collected more than 200 scat samples for genetic analysis.
The full article can be found here.