Pride and Protection Must Go Hand in Hand

13.06.22

Sri Lanka is very proud of its one and only Big Cat and apex predator – the magnificent leopard.

The most important measure to safeguard our unique Panthera pardus kotiya for posterity is to provide a high-level of protection within the country’s National Parks (NPs) as is happening now and crucial connectivity to forests adjacent to NPs so that they can roam from one to the other without danger.

This has been established through solid research by a team which has hunkered down in Wilpattu, Sri Lanka’s oldest and Asia’s second oldest formally-declared Protected Area (PA), to study the leopard. Covering an area of 131,693 hectares, this NP on the north-western coast comprises dry lowland forest with a cluster of villus, which are naturally-formed rain-fed water bodies.

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