Monday morning 18 October 2021, Burgers’ Zoo veterinarian Henk Luten vaccinated a six-week-old Sri Lankan leopard against feline panleukopenia and cat flu, dewormed it and microchipped it. The leopard is a female. There are 77 Sri Lankan leopards living in zoos worldwide, 38 males and 39 females. It is estimated that between 200 and 400 leopards still exist in the wild in Sri Lanka.

The six-week-old Sri Lankan leopard was touched by human hands for the first time on Monday, 18 October. The cub will receive a second vaccination at the age of about nine weeks, after which it will be immune to feline panleukopenia and cat flu. Not long after the second vaccination, the cub will be introduced to the enclosure for the first time under the watchful eye of its mother.

Worldwide, 27 zoos keep a total of 77 Sri Lankan leopards. In Europe, there are 24 zoos with 58 leopards of this subspecies. Outside Europe, Sri Lankan leopards can also be found in the zoo of Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka, in Singapore and Yarralumla, Australia. Clearly, Europe plays a very important role in the population management of Sri Lankan leopards.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) publishes the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, which lists the status of endangered species. The status of the Sri Lankan leopard was recently changed from Endangered to Vulnerable. Despite this positive development, the Sri Lankan leopard population in the wild still faces dangerous threats such as illegal hunting and habitat destruction. However, the situation has improved slightly compared to previous years.