Panthera works in partnership with local and international NGOs, scientific institutions, corporate partner and government agencies to develop and implement range-wide species conservation strategies. It has funded the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit at Oxford University, with a diploma program in international wildlife practice.[2] The organization also awards a number of grants to support promising field conservationists. These grant programs include the Kaplan Graduate Awards, the Research and Conservation Grants, the Small Cat Action Fund, the Sabin Snow Leopard Grant Program and the Winston Cobb Memorial Fellowships.[1]
Founders and leadership
Panthera was co-founded by American scientist Alan Rabinowitz and American entrepreneurThomas S. Kaplan; who formerly served as Chairman of Panthera’s Board of Trustees, succeeded in 2021 by Jonathan Ayers.[3] Kaplan currently is Chairman of The Global Alliance for Wild Cats.[4] Rabinowitz was the first President and CEO from 2001 until 2017 when he was succeeded by French scientist Fred Launay.[5] Dr. Rabinowitz helped establish the world's first jaguar preserve in 1986, in Belize,[6] and was the main driving force behind the Jaguar Corridor that connects jaguar populations across its range, from Mexico to Argentina.[2]
John Goodrich leads Panthera’s Tiger Program and serves as Chief Scientist. Kim Young-Overton serves as Director of Panthera’s Cheetah Program, and Gareth Mann is Director of Panthera’s Leopard Program. Additionally, Byron Weckworth is the Director of the Snow Leopard Program, Wai-Ming Wong is Director of the Small Cats Program and Mark Elbroch is the Director of the Puma Program. Howard Quigley joined the organization in 2009[7] and is currently the Director of its Jaguar Program.
In South America, Mesoamerica and Mexico, Panthera is developing a transnationalcorridor to help protect the jaguar. Jaguar survival and health depends on a network of corridors that span the continent, while past efforts focused on developing distinct sanctuaries.[9] It is the jaguar's ability to travel long distances that prevents inbreeding and consequent extinction.
In August 2010, in Belize, it worked with the government to create the Labouring Creek Jaguar Corridor Wildlife Sanctuary, with more than 7,000 acres (28 km²) of land. The project is part of the Panthera Jaguar Corridor Initiative.[10] In Costa Rica, it is researching the routes that jaguars travel, and encouraging politicians and developers to respect those routes. They are also sponsoring community outreach programs to alleviate "jaguar conflict issues".[9] In Mesoamerica and North America, Panthera also works in Mexico, Guatemala,[11]Honduras[12] and Nicaragua, in addition to its ongoing work in Belize and Costa Rica.
In early 2010, Panthera signed a deal with the Colombian government to protect and develop the area where the Central and South American jaguar corridors converge in Colombia. In Brazil, Panthera manages Fazenda Jofre Velho,[13] one of the most important research bases in the Pantanal. They are working with local ranchers to find benign ways to protect their cattle, rather than the typical approach of shooting the jaguars.[6]
Panthera’s South American puma initiatives are focused in Chile. Working with their partner, the Fundación Cerro Guido Conservación,[14] they are exploring various methods to enhance the peaceful coexistence between pumas and sheep, including protective Maremma and Pirineossheepdogs, Foxlights and supporting puma ecotourism.
United States projects
Panthera also works to protect pumas and small cats across the Americas. In the Northwest, their OlympicCougar Project represents an important and exciting partnership between Panthera and six indigenous tribes, led by the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, to study and protect pumas in the dense coniferous forests, glacier-clad mountains and rugged coastlines of Washington’s stunning Olympic Peninsula.[15] Previously, Panthera’s puma initiatives in the United States were focused in Wyoming.
In the Northeast U.S., Panthera also runs the New York Millfarm Bobcat Project[16] to understand bobcat ecology in an eastern rural landscape and use this information to develop a replicable monitoring protocol to inform bobcat management plans in New York State and other States along the eastern coast.
Asia and Middle East projects
In Asia, Panthera's Tigers Forever project is planning a 5,000-mile (8,000 km) long corridor from Bhutan to Myanmar for wild tiger populations. The corridor would also include land in northeast India, Thailand, and Malaysia, and possibly Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam.[17]
Panthera works in India, and has increased tiger numbers in Manas National Park. Additionally, further east, in August 2010, the government of Myanmar announced the expansion, by 4,248 square miles (11,000 km²), of the Hukawng Valley Tiger Reserve, the world's largest tiger preserve. Panthera CEO Alan Rabinowitz helped bring together representatives from the Kachin Independence Army and the Myanmar government to make the expansion possible.[18]
Panthera also works in Thailand to protect wild cats, including tigers and fishing cats, and in Malaysian Borneo to study the five species of small cats that inhabit Sabah.
In August 2010, the government of Burma announced the expansion, by 4,248 square miles (11,000 km2), of the Hukawng Valley Tiger Reserve, the world's largest tiger preserve. Panthera CEO Alan Rabinowitz helped bring together representatives from the Kachin Independence Army and the Burma government to make the expansion possible.[20][21]
Panthera's Snow Leopard Program is studying the species in Mongolia, and surveying new regions where the animals are likely to live, but have not yet been discovered. They work with local animal herders to train them in new approaches that will reduce livestock lost to the leopards. They are also working at protection for the estimated 3,500 to 7,000 snow leopards in Central Asia. Programs include giving a bonus to Mongolian herding communities that have gone one year without killing a snow leopard, and livestock vaccinations in Pakistan, where loss to disease is greater than leopard depredation.[23][24]
Panthera's Snow Leopard Program has studied the species in Mongolia, and surveyed new regions where the animals are likely to live, but have not yet been discovered.[24] They are also working to protect snow leopards in Central Asia, including in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.[25][26][27]
Panthera works across the African continent. In South Africa, the Sabi Sands protected area, bordering the Kruger National Park, is a long-term leopard research site and one of Panthera’s flagship projects. The knowledge generated from this work is critical to informing local wildlife management and broader conservation policy across the leopard range.[29]
Within Zambia, Panthera project sites are focused in the Greater Kafue Ecosystem (GKE).[30] They currently support 17 anti-poaching teams, two dedicated lion monitoring and protection teams and one leopard monitoring team across Kafue National Park and surrounding Game Management Areas.[31] Panthera’s Cheetah Program has also GPS collared cheetahs in the park.[32] Panthera also has project sites elsewhere across southern Africa, including in Zimbabwe and Angola.
Since 2010, Panthera has collaborated with Agence Nationale des Parcs Nationaux (ANPN), Gabon’s National Park Agency, to monitor wildlife in Plateaux Batéké National Park, where a lone male lion was spotted on a camera trap. Panthera Gabon is currently working on a countrywide leopard survey and helping the Gabonese government and ANPN identify gazelle wildlife movement corridors in order to secure and connect populations.[33]
Over the past decade, Panthera has built a strong working relationship with the government of Senegal, formalized through a long-term agreement with the Department of National Parks to strengthen park management and security in Niokolo-Koba National Park.[34] They provide direct support to ranger teams for effective large-scale patrols, the rebuilding and expansion of the park’s infrastructure and intensive ecological monitoring, including monitoring of lions using GPS-satellite collars.[35]
Panthera also works on initiatives in southern Africa that provide synthetic wild cat furs to communities in place of traditional garb.[36] They work with the Barotse Royal Establishment of the Lozi People in Zambia (Saving Spots Initiative) and the Nazareth Baptist ChurcheBuhleni (known as the Shembe Church) in South Africa (Furs for Life Initiative) in this capacity.[37][38] More than 18,500 synthetic capes have already been distributed to the Shembe Church,[39][40] and synthetic garb was provided to the Lozi people during the traditional Kuomboka Festival in 2022.
