SANDAKAN: Sunda clouded leopards (Neofelis diardi) rely heavily on intact and connected forests for survival despite being able to cross oil palm plantations and other human-modified areas, according to a new international study in Sabah.
Published in the journal Animal Biotelemetry, the study combined high-resolution GPS telemetry with long-term camera-trap surveys to examine the spatial behaviour and movement patterns of the threatened apex predator in the Lower Kinabatangan floodplain.
The researchers monitored wild clouded leopards across about 2,000sq km of protected riparian forests, commercial reserves and oil palm plantations.
Lead author Dr Andrew Hearn of WildCRU said tracked adult males maintained home ranges of about 41sq km, while an adult female occupied a significantly smaller range of about seven sq km.
He said male clouded leopards showed strong spatial separation, with their territories overlapping by only about eight per cent, suggesting strict boundary enforcement, while the female’s range substantially overlapped those of multiple males.
The study found that clouded leopards relied almost exclusively on native forests for resting and stationary activities, with forest use recorded at more than 98 to 100 per cent.
Although the animals occasionally crossed oil palm plantations and roads, they moved nearly twice as fast through open areas, at up to 1.49km/h, compared with 0.37 to 0.53km/h in natural forests.
The researchers said this indicated that agricultural areas were treated mainly as high-risk transit zones rather than viable habitat. The study also found that Sunda clouded leopards were active both day and night, with prominent activity peaks at dawn and dusk.
One of the most significant findings was the importance of a 200-metre-long isolated limestone ridge known as Batangan Ridge, which accounted for more than 54 per cent of all camera-trap detections across the 2,000sq km study area.
Hearn said the ridge was visited frequently by multiple individuals, including animals from overlapping male territories, and accounted for the vast majority of observed scent-marking behaviour.
The findings challenge previous broad-scale models that may have inflated clouded leopard home ranges by including agricultural areas, indicating instead that oil palm landscapes mainly serve as temporary movement corridors.
Dr Benoit Goossens, Director of Danau Girang Field Centre and a professor at Cardiff University, said the findings demonstrated that while Sunda clouded leopards could cross human-modified habitats, their survival fundamentally depended on intact and connected forest networks.
“Protecting natural forest patches, riparian corridors and distinct features like ridgelines is non-negotiable if we want to maintain landscape connectivity and social stability for this species,” he said.
The researchers called on land managers and policymakers in Sabah and across Southeast Asia to prioritise the protection and restoration of forest corridors within agricultural landscapes.