The Zanzibar Leopard

THE PERCEIVED PERSISTENCE OF THE ZANZIBAR LEOPARD

2011-05-07T05:51:00.000-07:00

Over the Easter holiday we finished drafting a paper about the Zanzibar leopard for an edited volume provisionally entitled Animals Out of Place: Cryptozoology in Anthropological Perspective. This book gathers together case studies from around the world and is being edited by Samantha Hurn, who lectures in the School of Archaeology, History and Anthropology at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David. There are plans to present some of its chapters in a panel on 'Cryptozoology: animals out of place or time' at ASA11: Vital powers and politics: human interactions with living things, the annual conference of the Association of Social Anthropologists of the UK and Commonweath, which will be held at Lampeter in September. Here's an extract from our draft chapter, 'Cryptids and credulity: the Zanzibar leopard and other imaginary beings', which still has to be reviewed by colleagues. It follows sections on 'The Zanzibar leopard in scientific discourse', 'Ethnotaxonomies of the Zanzibar leopard', and 'Witchcraft and leopard-keeping narratives':

THE PERCEIVED PERSISTENCE OF THE ZANZIBAR LEOPARD

Unguja island

When we undertook our consultancy in July 1996 there appeared to be good evidence for the continuing presence of the Zanzibar leopard in the south and east of Unguja island. National Hunters’ reports indicated that leopards were still being killed (along with other ‘vermin’): the last kill on record was from a hunt in Jambiani on 17-18 April 1995 (Goldman and Walsh 1997: 31-36). We were also told of more recent kills by independent groups of hunters. The former secretary of the National Hunters, who worked as our research assistant, told us that ‘Omani Arab’ hunters from Mlandege in Zanzibar town were rumoured to have killed a leopard at Mtule, between Kitogani and Paje, in March 1996 (Goldman and Walsh 1997: 29). An interviewee in Dimani told us that three leopard cubs had been killed by young hunters in that area on or around 21 April 1996 (Goldman and Walsh 1997: 26). These and reports of earlier kills were supplemented by descriptions of recent leopard sightings and other evidence for their presence, including seven reported sightings in 1996 (Goldman and Walsh 1997: 3, 24-36; 2002: 19-22).

At the time we had no reason to disbelieve these claims, though some experienced hunters said that they had not seen evidence of leopards for a number of years. We knew that most kills by independent and local groups of hunters would be hidden from official view and would not be included in National Hunters’ statistics. And their former secretary – who showed us his own list of kills – told us that the National Hunters did not submit records of all of their leopard kills because they were concerned that the hunting of leopards might be stopped by the government. As it happens, when we began our joint research moves were afoot to do just this. The recently passed Forest Resources Management and Conservation Act of 1996 provided for the preparation of lists of protected wild animals and plants, and, in the interim, the use of lists that had been on the statutes since the colonial period but ignored since the Zanzibar Revolution (Sections 76-79, Part VIII, “Conservation of Wild Animals and Wild Plants”, in The Revolutionary Government of Zanzibar 1996: 40-42). The Zanzibar leopard was on the old schedule of protected wild animals (Walsh and Goldman 2007: 1140-1141, 1150), and was about to be included in the new one. As a result it had become illegal (again) to kill, injure, destroy, capture or collect leopards without a special permit, unless this was done “to defend against an attack or imminent threat of attack on human life” (Section 77 in The Revolutionary Government of Zanzibar 1996: 40).

This new legislation seems to have had an immediate effect on the practice of the National Hunters. From January 1996 onwards the vermin hunting statistics based on their reports no longer included leopard kills.[13] Since July 1996 we have not been told of any leopard kills by National Hunters. Nor have we heard of any certainly killed by local groups, individual hunters, or others. In August 1999 the then Head of Conservation in Zanzibar told Goldman that he had heard that a dead leopard had been found near Kinyasini about a year earlier (i.e. sometime in mid-late 1998), but he knew no more details, including whether this leopard had been killed or not. We do not know whether the lack of information about leopard kills in the past decade and a half reflects reluctance to talk about an activity that has been (re)defined as illegal, or the fact that very few and perhaps no leopards at all have been killed since 1996. It may be that there are very few or no leopards left to kill on Unguja. Otherwise we wonder whether we would have picked up on more stories of kills had we spent longer in the field or interviewed more hunters during subsequent research trips and other visits to Zanzibar.

At the same time, reports of leopard sightings and other evidence for their presence continue to reach us. Every time we visit Zanzibar and meet with former colleagues working in the Department of Commercial Crops, Fruits and Forestry (DCCFF) we are titillated with tales of sightings and other incidents, some of them involving kept leopards and their alleged keepers, others more prosaic, and so to us more believable. During his latest trip in October 2007, Walsh was told at the headquarters of Jozani-Chwaka Bay National Park that about three months earlier a ranger on night patrol had reported seeing a tree shaking and then a half-eaten Blue monkey (Cercopithecus mitis) – presumed to be a leopard’s meal – lodged in its branches. The details of this, it was said, had been recorded by the Chief Park Warden (who was one of our research assistants in 1996), and in a subsequent interview the latter recounted that the ranger in question was a 40-year-old man from Ukongoroni, and that what he had actually seen was not a monkey, but a leopard in a fork of a tree about four metres off the ground. This was not at night, but around ten o’clock in the morning at a place called Kiwandani. The Chief Park Warden was not sure of the date: he had maybe interviewed the ranger in April, and perhaps the incident had taken place in January 2007. The ranger was very excited when he came to tell him what he had seen. He described making eye contact with the leopard, whereupon he began to step slowly backwards, thinking that the leopard’s keeper might be somewhere near. He also related how he had watched the leopard stretching its way down the trunk of the tree after leaving the fork in which it was resting. He had not seen a leopard for many years, but claimed not to have been afraid by this unexpected encounter.

It is instructive here to note the discrepancies between the second- and third-hand reports of this sighting: the ranger involved would presumably have given a different account again. In the same interview the Chief Park Warden also mentioned that leopards had been much in evidence in Makunduchi in 2007: they were reported to have preyed on chickens, ducks and goats, and villagers had responded by reading the halbadiri curse [...] against the leopard-keepers, whoever they were. Other reports of leopard sightings have come to us by email. In February 2009 the Zanzibari owner of Zala Park, a small private zoo in Muungoni, wrote to say that a leopard had been heard at Mtule on the Kitogani-Paje road, and that the watchman at a brick-makers claimed to have seen it twice, in December 2008 and January 2009. In March 2009 we were copied into correspondence by the Chief Park Warden reporting that since the start of the year four rangers had independently seen a leopard at a single location in the forest in Jozani-Chwaka Bay National Park. The last sighting was on 1 March. We were unable, however, to obtain further details about these sightings. It is difficult to elicit information on cases like this at a distance, though our former assistant does make an effort to record particular incidents. Indeed he was also involved in the following case, which provides further illustration of the difficulty that we have in verifying reports and reconciling the accounts of different informants.

The Wangwani site

In April 2002 this officer told Walsh that in August 2001, while undertaking a survey of the mangrove forest north-west of Jozani, he, other staff, and the local villagers who were also members of the surveying team, had come across leopard tracks at Wangwani. They followed the spoor until they encountered the remains of a male Suni antelope (Neotragus moschatus), which they assumed to have been killed by the leopard. He collected one of its horns and also leopard faeces from the site, and took them back to Forestry Commission headquarters at Maruhubi, where they were kept in bottles. However, when Walsh asked to see this material, it could not be found, and he was led to understand that the bottles had probably been thrown away by cleaners or other staff, perhaps afraid of the presence of leopard-related relics in their workplace. Walsh followed this up by interviewing a Jozani Forest Guard who had been present when the finds had been made at Wangwani. He provided a detailed account that differed in a number of ways from the first one. He agreed, however, that they had collected leopard faeces, adding that the men on the team (eight in all) were quite apprehensive about this, afraid that it was a kept leopard and knowing that keeping such objects was a dangerous thing to do. The first officer (our former assistant) later said that he had kept this material on his desk for some time, but that it had indeed been thrown out by the office cleaners. It emerged that the same fate had also befallen presumed leopard scat collected by Goldman and handed over to the office in 1997.[14] In January 2003 Goldman followed up on the Wangwani case. Two of the other men who had been on the original survey team took her to the site of the antelope kill, and provided accounts that were at variance with both of those given to Walsh. They could not cast any light on the loss of the material taken to Maruhubi, but like others in the party were clearly steeped in leopard-keeping lore and not entirely happy with the collection of leopard faeces. Further efforts by Goldman to find out more information produced only more discrepancies, but did at least result in the finding of the original data record of the mangrove survey (Walsh and Goldman 2010: 13-14).

Despite the discrepancies, and the allusions to leopard-keeping, it is easy to imagine a core of truth in these accounts, and to hypothesise that they were based on real sightings and/or signs of a leopard’s presence – or another animal mistaken for a leopard. But other claims stretch credibility. We have written at length elsewhere (Walsh and Goldman 2010) about the ‘kept leopard chases’ that a number of researchers and visitors to Zanzibar have taken part in and sometimes paid money for, lured by the promise of being shown a tame leopard. These quixotic quests for imaginary animals have always proved fruitless, much to the chagrin of their pursuers. In recent years Zanzibari conservationists have joined the pursuit along with non-Zanzibaris beguiled by leopard-keeping narratives. In January 2003 DCCFF staff told Goldman about an ongoing kept leopard chase that had involved a number of them. According to one official in the department, it began three months earlier with reports of leopard predation on livestock. Another official in the same department denied that there had been reports of leopard attacks on livestock. Instead he claimed that the case had been brought to the attention of the DCCFF because a leopard had been seen entering and exiting a house in Marumbi, and the person who had observed this had been bewitched and struck mute. DCCFF employees were sent to follow up on these reports, and one of them saw the house of the supposed leopard keeper together with a peculiar opening at the back that would allow a leopard to come and go. The visitors met with the deputy Sheha (local administrator) to talk about events, but were spooked into silence when they realised that the alleged leopard keeper was lurking nearby. A DCCFF team returned again in January 2003, and their leader asked the deputy Sheha to collaborate in an attempt to get a photo of the kept leopard. The deputy was very reluctant to agree to this and clearly afraid, but was told that as a government employee he had no option but to cooperate. Eventually he yielded, but it was agreed that when the researchers returned with a camera they would have to pretend that they were doing something else, like surveying monkeys or birds. Back in Zanzibar town, the team leader approached Goldman, who was then photo-trapping in Jozani forest, hoping that she would carry out the plan, for which transport for a team of DCCFF staff as well as money for accommodation and a payment to the Sheha were all required. While she considered the limited time and resources at her disposal – and the implications of the discrepancies in different accounts, together with a rumour that the leopard in question had been shifted to another location – the team leader promised to write a letter of introduction that would smooth the way with the local administrator. This letter was never delivered and there were other indications that the DCCFF had dropped their plan to follow up on this case. That was the last we heard of the Marumbi leopard.

Whereas foreign researchers have sometimes been beguiled into believing that leopard-keeping is really practised on Unguja, some Zanzibari researchers and others have sought to reconcile their own witchcraft beliefs with conservation science by proposing that kept leopards be displayed to the public and tourists in particular. The idea of a zoo or holding pen for leopards was suggested by one of the American student researchers referred to earlier, Benjamin Selkow (1995: 12); it has since been taken up enthusiastically by Zanzibaris believing that leopard keepers might make good use of their leopards in this way. One of our research assistants in 1996, the former secretary of the National Hunters, asked a number of our interviewees whether it would be feasible to persuade leopard keepers to display their leopards to the public and fee-paying tourists. The same idea also came up in the discussion that followed our end-of-fieldwork presentation to the Jozani-Chwaka Bay Conservation Project (JCBCP) and other government staff (Walsh 1996). We were careful in that meeting not to overtly criticise the beliefs of the many people in the audience who believed in leopard-keeping, and we did not question the display proposal as directly as we might have done otherwise. In October 1996 Goldman and a colleague in the Commission for Natural Resources were asked to investigate just such a proposition. They met with four men in Kizimkazi who wanted to capture and display leopards: they claimed to have seen a leopard in the area in recent months, and thought it possible that this and indeed all leopards were kept. But they had no clear idea of how they would obtain and care for the animals, other than making a range of suggestions (for details see Walsh and Goldman 2010: 15-16). The proposal did not receive official approval and Goldman (who was then working for JCBCP) heard nothing more of this scheme.

The leopard display idea clearly did not wither and die after the dissemination of our final report, in which we made it clear that we thought leopard-keeping to be wholly imaginary (Goldman and Walsh 1997: iii, 1, 13-15). Indeed it surfaced in a quite unexpected place, in a debate in the Zanzibar House of Representatives in April 2003, when the Deputy Minister for Agriculture, Natural Resources, Environment and Co-operatives declared that his ministry would be happy to buy leopards to display them to tourists (Walsh and Goldman 2010: 16-17). As far as we are aware, no one has yet come forward to sell a live Zanzibar leopard to the government. Needless to say, proposals for the display of leopards continue to be made by independent entrepreneurs such as the owner of Zala Park. In February 2009 he wrote to Goldman to tell her about his plan to build a leopard enclosure at a site in Pete. He asked for any advice she could give on keeping leopards for the purposes of conservation, education and research. In a subsequent communication he declared that he had been forced to put his plans for the new facility on hold because he had been denied permission by the authorities. Expansion of the existing zoo at Muungoni would also require official approval if he was to display animals protected under the Forest Resources Management and Conservation Act of 1996.

Zanzibar servaline genet

These contemporary notions about the possible social and economic benefits of displaying captive leopards are indicative of the continuing strength of the leopard-keeping narratives that underpin them. Meanwhile, we can hypothesise that the cultural salience of leopards on Unguja, the widespread belief in the existence of leopard-keeping, and the consequent apprehension that many people feel about this form of witchcraft, result in many more imagined sightings and claims regarding leopards than would otherwise be the case. Hunters themselves note that some of their colleagues and fellow villagers are liable to mistake other, smaller carnivores on the island for leopards.[15] These include the spotted and banded African civet (Civettictis civetta), which is explicitly compared to the Zanzibar leopard (see Table 1), and the Zanzibar servaline genet (Genetta servalina archeri), known in some parts of Unguja as uchui (Goldman et al. 2004: 6), literally ‘the slender leopard’.[16] The tracks of different local carnivores (and sometimes other animals) can also be readily confused, for example when they have been made in sand or on dusty ground. During their 1997 survey, the Stuarts, who had authored a field guide to tracks and signs (1994), were disappointed by a number of such misidentifications. They cast doubt on the identity of the alleged leopard pugmarks illustrated in our printed report (Goldman and Walsh 1997: 56), and concluded that many islanders erroneously attribute the tracks of the African civet to the leopard (1997a: 4; 1997b: 1; 1998: 37).[17]

There is a large literature on the psychology of eyewitness testimony (e.g. Kapardis 2003: 21-125), and a smaller literature on the evaluation of claimed animal sightings, some of it written by cryptozoologists (e.g. Rabbit 2002). It is widely acknowledged that preconceptions can affect perceptions, and there is little doubt that this has happened in the case of the Zanzibar leopard, generating both false sightings and the misinterpretation of tracks and perhaps also other signs. Kept leopards and leopard keepers are imaginary beings, and belief in them has certainly contributed to imagined sightings, mistaken identifications, and the proliferation of gossip and rumour relating to these (cf. Stewart and Strathern 2004). But some false attributions would probably be made anyway, for example when other animals or indirect evidence for their presence are confused with the leopard and its presumed signs. It is also possible that some misidentifications are not involuntary, but fabricated or otherwise elaborated by informants eager to please researchers, as the Stuarts argued (1997a: 4). We have seen examples of this ourselves when asking people to identify photographs of animals, a procedure which suffers from a number of pitfalls (cf. Barley 1983: 96-97; Diamond 1989).

This leads us to ask whether all recent reports of leopard sightings and signs can be explained away, as the Stuarts suggested, although even they allowed that a few individual leopards might survive (1997a: 3; 1997b: 1). As we have seen, some reports are more convincing than others. Leopards elsewhere are known to be largely nocturnal and secretive animals, capable of roaming through city suburbs as well as through the African countryside without being observed (Guggisberg 1975: 228; Seidensticker 1991: 107; Nowell and Jackson 1996: 28; Sunquist and Sunquist 2002: 321). With this in mind, we cannot entirely rule out the possibility that the Zanzibar leopard does persist, as we stated in an earlier paper (Goldman and Walsh 2002). The same is suggested by the relatively recent discovery of two nocturnal carnivores on Unguja: the Zanzibar servaline genet in 1995 (Van Rompaey and Colyn 1998; Goldman and Winther-Hansen 2003a; 2003b), and a local population of the African palm civet (Nandinia binotata) in 1998-99 (Perkin 2004). Both of these were previously unrecorded, though they were known to villagers (Goldman et al. 2004).

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

The title of Jared Diamond’s ‘Extant unless proven extinct? Or, extinct unless proven extant?’ (1987) summed up a question that continues to be debated by conservation biologists (e.g. Brussard 1986; King 1988; Mace and Collar 1995; Reed 1996; Kéry 2002; Butchart et al. 2006; Roberts et al. 2009; Vogel et al. 2009). How is extinction in the recent past to be recognised or inferred? As Diamond and others have observed, detecting extinction is often easier said than done. The various qualitative and quantitative answers given to this question have influenced successive editions of the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.[18] The current Guidelines for Using the IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria (Version 8.1) state that:

“A taxon is Extinct when there is no reasonable doubt that the last individual has died. A taxon is presumed Extinct when exhaustive surveys in known and/or expected habitat, at appropriate times (diurnal, seasonal, annual), throughout its historic range have failed to record an individual. Surveys should be over a time frame appropriate to the taxon’s life cycles and life form.” (IUCN 2010: 9).

Operationalising this definition, however, and drawing a sharp dividing line between the IUCN categories of Critically Endangered and Extinct, has proved problematic. One problem is that premature declarations of demise can lead to what has been called the ‘Romeo Error’, whereby “any protective measures and funding are removed from threatened species in the mistaken belief that they are already extinct” (IUCN 2010: 67, citing Collar 1998). In response to discussions of this problem (see Butchart et al. 2006), the IUCN has introduced a qualifying tag so that taxa of indeterminate status can be described as ‘Critically Endangered (possibly extinct)’:

“Critically Endangered (possibly extinct) taxa are those that are, on the balance of evidence, likely to be extinct, but for which there is a small chance that they may be extant. Hence they should not be listed as Extinct until adequate surveys have failed to record the species and local or unconfirmed reports have been investigated and discounted.” (IUCN 2010: 67)

If we had to choose a category (and tag) for the Zanzibar leopard it would probably be this one.[19] But we are also aware that a single corroborated sighting (for example supported by photographic evidence), or a physical specimen (and genetic profile) with well-documented provenance, would be sufficient to remove the ‘possibly extinct’ tag, at least in the short term.

Compare the Stuarts’ conclusion following their 1997 survey:

“We encountered absolutely no sign of leopards during the survey and we believe that this cat is now extinct on the island, or at best present in such low numbers that there is little, or no, hope of doing anything to save it in the wild state.” (Stuart and Stuart 1997b: 1)

Although they allowed for the survival of leopards, this pessimistic statement, as we have seen, discouraged further research and efforts to develop a leopard conservation programme.[20] The Stuarts’ search for leopards and leopard sign, which included camera-trapping, together with a later photo-trapping survey conducted in Jozani forest by Goldman and Winther-Hansen (2003a), have been the only systematic attempts to detect the Zanzibar leopard to date. These do not constitute the “exhaustive surveys in known and/or expected habitat” without any record of an individual that are required if a taxon is to satisfy IUCN criteria for Extinction. The Stuarts were sceptical about the evidence for recent leopard kills and sightings that we recorded in our 1997 report, and discounted other reports that they heard in the field without thoroughly investigating these. Nor, it must be said, have we had the opportunity to follow up many of the accounts that we have been given since 1997 that might be counted as “reasonably convincing recent local reports or unconfirmed sightings” and that would support the categorisation of the Zanzibar leopard as ‘Critically Endangered (possibly extinct)’ (IUCN 2010: 68). Needless to say, it would be difficult to apply probabilistic methods for inferring extinction (e.g. Roberts et al. 2009; Vogel et al. 2009) to these reports, given questions about their reliability, and the fact that many of them are not first-hand. Likewise any attempt to use the statistics of leopard kills for the same purpose would run into difficulties because they represent kills by only one group – the National Hunters – and because they appear not to have been kept once it became illegal again to kill leopards. Even if these methods were applied, it would only take a single corroborated observation, sample or specimen to falsify a hypothesis of extinction. Argument then shifts to determining what exactly counts as corroboration and so adequate evidence for falsification (cf. Roberts et al. 2009), and brings us back to assessing the reliability of Zanzibaris’ claims to have seen leopards and other signs of their presence.

Cryptozoology flourishes in this epistemological abyss. [the discussion continues]

ENDNOTES [numbered as in the draft]

13. In addition to the statistics for the years 1983-95 analysed in our earlier work (Goldman and Walsh 1997; 2002), we have since obtained a complete record for 1995, and for the years 1996-99 and 2001-02.

14. Our interest in locating this material was prompted by the possibility that it might be used in genetic analysis, but nothing kept in the Maruhubi office appears to have survived, including the photographs of leopard pelt and presumed pugmarks that were included in the original printed version of our 1997 report (Goldman and Walsh 1997: 55-56, Figures 7-12: these particular images are therefore absent from the more widely distributed pdf version of the report).

15. On the other hand, there are a number of reports of a leopard being accidentally shot by a hunter who has caught no more than a fleeting glimpse of it in the dark, and assumed that it was a duiker or other animal.

16. The local dialect name uchui (earlier *luchui) is derived from a combination of the Swahili class 11 noun prefix u- (*lu), which typically signifies length and/or thinness, and the noun root -chui, ‘leopard’ (cf. Nurse and Hinnebusch 1993: 349-351, 639).

17. Ordinarily, pawprints left by African civets and leopards are readily distinguishable because the former include claw marks whereas the latter do not: leopards keep their claws retracted when walking (Stuart and Stuart 1994: 17, 19, 26, 40). The Stuarts argued that the clawless pugmarks that are sometimes observed on paths in the Zanzibari forest and bush are signs of large African civets whose claws have been worn down by the rocky outcroppings prevalent on the coral rag of Unguja. Zanzibaris who are knowledgeable about wildlife deny this; according to them, African civet claws are never abraded to the extent that they leave no trace in pugmarks.

18. For the IUCN Red List and its background see http://www.iucnredlist.org/ (last accessed on 30 April 2011).

19. Our Zanzibari informants, however, have offered a wide variety of opinions that would translate into the full range of IUCN categories and tags: Not Evaluated, Data Deficient, Least Concern, Near Threatened, Vulnerable, Endangered, Critically Endangered, Critically Endangered (possibly extinct in the wild), Critically Endangered (possibly extinct), Extinct in the Wild, and Extinct (IUCN 2010: 7-9, 67-70)!

20. This example suggests that applying the ‘possibly extinct’ tag might not always avert the Romeo Error: declaring an animal extinct or almost certain to become so (“Going or gone” in the words of the title of Butchart et al. 2006) can kill off hope and funding for its conservation as effectively as pronouncing its definite extirpation.

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Vogel, Richard M., Jonathan R. M. Hosking, Chris S. Elphick, David L. Roberts and J. Michael Reed 2009. Goodness of fit of probability distributions for sightings as species approach extinction. Bulletin of Mathematical Biology 71 (3): 701-719.

Walsh, Martin 1996. The Zanzibar Leopard: An Anthropological Survey. End of Fieldwork Summary. Report to Jozani–Chwaka Bay Conservation Project, CARE Tanzania, and Commission for Natural Resources, Zanzibar.

Walsh, Martin and Helle Goldman 2007. Killing the king: the demonization and extermination of the Zanzibar leopard / Tuer le roi: la diabolisation et l’extermination du leopard de Zanzibar. In E. Dounias, E. Motte-Florac and M. Dunham (eds.) Le symbolisme des animaux: l’animal clef-de-voûte dans la tradition orale et les interactions homme–nature / Animal Symbolism: The ‘Keystone’ Animal in Oral Tradition and Interactions between Humans and Nature. Paris: IRD. 1133-1182.

Walsh, Martin and Helle Goldman 2010. Chasing imaginary leopards: science, witchcraft and the politics of conservation in Zanzibar. Paper presented to Contemporary Issues in Swahili Ethnography, VIII European Swahili Workshop, University of Oxford, 19-21 September 2010. [subsequently revised and submitted for publication]

SPOT THE DIFFERENCE! (a leopard skin puzzle)

2011-04-10T14:42:00.000-07:00

Who says a leopard can't change it's spots? Shown below are five black and white photos of leopard skins (taken and edited by Helle Goldman and Jon Winther-Hansen), each showing a comparable section of the midbody.* Can you spot any obvious differences between their coat patterns and configuration of rosettes? Can you group them into different categories?

We've shuffled the pictures up and given them random numbers, from 1 to 5. Use these to identify each skin and send us your thoughts, either by commenting on this blog or emailing us via zanzibar.leopard@virginmedia.com. Give it a go and contribute to science! All will be explained if and when we get some answers...

*Note that the photos aren't quite on the same scale, as the rulers show. Some of them have also become a bit squashed in the process of formatting for this blog.

leopard skin 1

leopard skin 2

leopard skin 3

leopard skin 4

leopard skin 5

DISPLAYING KEPT LEOPARDS

2010-09-25T01:21:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week we presented our paper on 'Chasing imaginary leopards' to the VIII European Swahili Workshop on Contemporary Issues in Swahili Ethnography in the University of Oxford. The core of the paper describes the way in which researchers and other visitors to Zanzibar have fallen for local beliefs about the Zanzibar leopard and have been drawn into futile searches for the leopards that are allegedly kept by witches on Unguja island. This section on 'Kept leopard chases' is followed by another that describes local proposals for the display of leopards. Here's the draft text in full:

Displaying kept leopards

Whereas foreign researchers have sometimes been beguiled into believing that leopard-keeping is really practised on Unguja, some Zanzibari researchers and others have sought to reconcile their own witchcraft beliefs with conservation science in a quite different way, by proposing that kept leopards be displayed to the public and tourists in particular. Zanzibar had a zoo (of sorts) in the period after the Revolution, and exotic animals have been displayed from time to time. In the mid-1990s a small private zoo, Zala Park, that houses mainly reptiles and amphibians, was established in Muungoni village near to Jozani Forest. But it seems most likely that the modern idea of displaying leopards arose in response to the research that was being undertaken at that time. One of the questions that SIT (School for International Training) student Benjamin Selkow asked his interviewees in 1995 was: “Hypothetically, how would you feel if a zoo or holding pen with a Zanzibar leopard was built somewhere in Zanzibar?” (1995: 12). He reports:

I received a mixed response to the proposal of a Zanzibar leopard holding pen. The majority supported the hypothetical plan and thought it was a good idea for a variety of reasons. Some said the present generation (those under forty years of age) has only heard about and had never seen a leopard and probably would not unless there was a zoo. Others said it was a good way to educate people about its history without them feeling threatened because it would be in a cage (and there would be some gratification in seeing “the pest” caged). Many supported the idea because it would attract more tourists which would help the local businesses as well as being a source of government revenue.
Several interviewees were against this proposal or would support it with some reservations. One man suggested breeding leopards to increase the population, and then distribute them to zoos at hotels around the island for educational and revenue purposes. A hunter from Upenja was quite adamant against breeding them, saying that only two to four should be kept. He wanted all offspring to be killed because he believed that they should only be for exhibition and not re-introduced into the wild. Another man said it would be a good idea for future generations, but not for the present because there is still too much “aggressive fear.” A hunter from Paje supported this and said that exhibiting a Zanzibar leopard would [be] touching too sensitive an area with locals. He proposed exhibiting a mainland sub-species as a first step. Finally, several interviewees thought it would be a bad idea because the zoo would shame hunters, exhibit a creature that had too many superstitious and magical issues associated with it, and make owners vengeful because the respect by fear status that owners enjoy would be downgraded. (1995: 20)

Did Selkow help to plant the idea of a leopard pen or zoo? We may never know, but certainly by the time that we began joint fieldwork in July 1996 it wasn’t a new idea. MTW’s field assistant, who was an experienced hunter and former Secretary of the government-subsidised Wasasi wa Kitaifa (National Hunters’ organisation), enthusiastically asked a number of our interviewees whether it would be feasible to persuade leopard keepers to display their leopards to the public and fee-paying tourists. The same idea also came up in the discussion that followed our end-of-fieldwork presentation to JCBCP and other government staff (Walsh 1996). We were careful in that meeting not to overtly criticise the beliefs of the many people in the audience who believed in leopard-keeping, and we didn’t question the display proposal as directly as we might have done otherwise.

In October 1996 HVG and a colleague in the Commission for Natural Resources, Wahira J. Othman, were assigned to investigate a proposition that had been made to the Commission. They drove down to Kizimkazi to meet with four men who were proposing to capture and display leopards. At that time Kizimkazi was just beginning to become known for its dolphin tourism. They claimed to have seen a leopard in the area in recent months, and were firm believers in leopard-keeping, expressing the possibility that all leopards might be kept leopards. But they weren’t worried by being associated with witchcraft, because they planned to keep leopards in the open, in a zoo along the lines of Zala Park. When pressed, they didn’t have a clear idea of how they would obtain the animals. Perhaps they would buy them from a keeper whose leopard had given birth to cubs, and who could then instruct them on how to take care of the growing animals. In this case they’d also make use of the knowledge of ‘experts’ at the Commission. Or they might capture wild leopards using a cage trap with live bait. They opined that it would cost around Tshs 300,000 to purchase or capture a single leopard. Once they had a leopard in captivity, they would display it in an enclosure among bushes near the shore. This would be some 30 m x 20 m, and quite high. They also planned to build a reception area and small restaurant, at a cost of some Tshs 700,000. At this point in the conversation it seemed that they might be angling for support from the Commission, but they didn’t ask for this explicitly. Leopard keepers would show them how to train leopards. They wanted to start with two: a male and a female. One of the group of men suggested that they might kill surplus leopards, and sell the skins, but, sensing HVG’s unspoken disapproval, one of his colleagues countered that they would set them free in the bush. Before taking leave, Wahira let them know that the Commission would consider their idea, but that if it was approved, it would only be on a trial basis. The men agreed. On their way back to Zanzibar town HVG expressed her doubts about the proposal to Wahira, and did not hear about it again.

The leopard display idea clearly didn’t wither and die after the dissemination of our final report, in which we made it clear that we thought leopard-keeping to be wholly imaginary (Goldman and Walsh 1997). Indeed it surfaced in a quite unexpected place, in a debate in the Zanzibar House of Representatives in April 2003, when the Deputy Minister for Agriculture, Natural Resources, Environment and Co-operatives declared that his ministry would be happy to buy leopards to display them to tourists. At least this is how it was reported in the press:

Government is ready to buy Leopards

THE MINISTRY for Agriculture, Natural Resources, Environment and Co-operatives in Zanzibar has said that it is ready to buy Leopards if people come forward to sell them, reports MWANTANGA AME.
This announcement was made the day before yesterday in the hall of the House of Representatives in Zanzibar town. It was made by the Deputy Minister and Representative for Uzini constituency, Tafana Kassim Mzee, when he was contributing to the debate about starting a special fund.
He declared that his Ministry was ready to buy Leopards so that they could be displayed in tourist areas.
The Representative pointed out that some tourists already came to Zanzibar to see snakes. If Zanzibar had enough Leopards for the purpose then revenues could be raised accordingly.Tafana said that if the country had these animals they would increase government income, and he asked for citizens to sell them to the state.
He let it be known that the long-held fear that anyone caught with a Leopard would be punished was a thing of the past, and that the government had no plans to do that again.
“There’s a fear that if anyone appears with a Leopard, then he’ll feel the noose around his neck. Get rid of that fear: my Ministry is ready to buy Leopards; I declare that we will buy those Leopards”, he said.
Another Representative who contributed to this debate, Brigadier-General (Rtd.) Adam Mwakanjuki, said that in the past Zanzibar had a lot of Leopards, but that now they had disappeared.
He said that it was good that the Ministry was thinking of obtaining these animals so that they could be put in a special reserve and the government make money.
He said that it was sad that Zanzibar now only had one specimen of that animal in the museum at Mnazi Mmoja in Zanzibar town. (Ame 2003)

To anyone who has studied the history of Zanzibar leopard-killing since the Revolution, this statement represents an ironic turnaround. Adam Mwakanjuki was one of the original revolutionaries, and for many years the Minister of Agriculture responsible for a policy that classed leopards as vermin and contradicted the legal protection that the law was supposed to offer to them. As far as we are aware no one has yet come forward to sell a live Zanzibar leopard to the government.

References

Ame, Mwantanga 2003. Serikali iko tayari kununua chui. Zanzibar Leo, Sunday 13 April 2003, 6.

Goldman, Helle V. and Martin T. Walsh 1997. A Leopard in Jeopardy: An Anthropological Survey of Practices and Beliefs which Threaten the Survival of the Zanzibar Leopard (Panthera pardus adersi). Zanzibar Forestry Technical Paper No. 63, Jozani Chwaka Bay Conservation Project, Commission for Natural Resources, Zanzibar.

Selkow, Benjamin 1995. A Survey of Villager Perceptions of the Zanzibar Leopard. Unpublished student paper, prepared for the SIT Study Abroad program, Zanzibar.

Walsh, Martin T. 1996. The Zanzibar Leopard: An Anthropological Survey. End of Fieldwork Summary. Report to Jozani Chwaka Bay Conservation Project, CARE Tanzania, and Commission for Natural Resources, Zanzibar.

Walsh, Martin T. and Helle V. Goldman 2010. Chasing imaginary leopards: science, witchcraft and the politics of conservation in Zanzibar. Paper prepared for the VIII European Swahili Workshop, Contemporary Issues in Swahili Ethnography, University of Oxford, 19-21 September 2010.

See also Martin Walsh's blog post on the 'Imaginary animals of Zanzibar', East African Notes and Records, posted 25 September 2010.

CHASING IMAGINARY LEOPARDS

2010-05-15T02:31:00.000-07:00

Here's the abstract of a paper we're planning to present at the VIII European Swahili Workshop (whose theme is Contemporary Issues in Swahili Ethnography) at the African Studies Centre, University of Oxford, 19-21 September 2010:

Chasing imaginary leopards: science, witchcraft and the politics of conservation in Zanzibar

The Zanzibar leopard (Panthera pardus adersi) is (was) a little-known subspecies endemic to Unguja island. Rapid population growth and the expansion of farming in the 20th century destroyed leopard habitat and decimated their natural prey, bringing them into increasing conflict with people. Villagers explained the growing number of attacks on their children and livestock by theorising that the leopards responsible for them were owned by witches and sent by them to do harm. Following the Zanzibar Revolution in 1964, localised efforts to act on this theory culminated in an island-wide leopard eradication and witch-finding campaign, supported by the government. By the 1990s state-subsidised hunting had brought the leopard to the brink of extinction, and most zoologists now presume it to be extinct. However, many islanders believe that witches and their kept leopards are still active in rural Unguja, and leopard sightings continue to be reported. Beguiled by leopard-keeping narratives, visiting researchers and local conservationists have continued to pursue these elusive felids in the field. In this paper, based on joint ethnographic research begun in 1996, we describe and analyse a series of unsuccessful ‘kept leopard chases’, including abortive calls by government officials for the capture and display of domesticated leopards. The result is a case study of conflicting knowledge claims and the politics of conservation in Zanzibar that exposes contradictions of cultural practice and belief that remain to be resolved.

Le léopard de Zanzibar (Panthera pardus adersi) est (était) une sous-espèce endémique peu connue de l'île de Unguja. Une croissance démographique rapide ainsi que l'expansion de l'agriculture au 20ème siècle a détruit l'habitat du léopard et a décimé leurs proies naturelles, les amenant à rentrer en conflits avec les êtres humains. Les villageois expliquaient le nombre croissant d'attaques sur leurs enfants et sur le bétail en émettant l'hypothèse que les léopards qui en étaient responsable appartenaient aux sorcières et ont été envoyé par ces derniers à leur faire du mal. Suite à la révolution de Zanzibar en 1964, des efforts localisés à agir sur les bases de cette théorie ont abouti à une campagne d'éradication du léopard et chasse aux sorcières à l'échelle de l'île, soutenue par le gouvernement. Aux années 1990, la chasses au léopard, subventionnée par l'Etat, avait apporté le léopard au bord de l'extinction, et la plupart des zoologistes considérera maintenant qu'il soit éteint. Toutefois, de nombreux insulaires estiment que les sorcières et leurs léopards conservés sont encore actifs dans les régions rurales d'Unguja, et les observations de léopards continuent d'être signalés. Séduit par des récits de maintien de léopard, les chercheurs en mission ainsi que les écologistes locaux ont poursuivi ces félidés insaisissables sur le terrain. Dans cet article, basé sur une recherche ethnographique conjointe commencé en 1996, nous décrivons et analysons une série de "chasse au léopard conservé" sans réussite, y compris les appels sans succès de la part des représentants du gouvernement pour la capture et l'exposition des léopards domestiqués. Le résultat est une étude de cas de revendications contradictoires des connaissances et la politique de conservation de Zanzibar, qui exposent les contradictions d'une pratique culturelle et la conviction que doivent encore être résolues.

ELUSIVE LEOPARDS, ELUSIVE SPECIMENS

2009-11-22T03:02:00.000-08:00

Tourist guides and internet sites frequently describe the Zanzibar leopard (Panthera pardus adersi) as "elusive". Much the same can be said of specimens of this rare and possibly extinct island endemic. When we starting working together in 1996 we knew of the existence of four museum specimens. In the course of investigating these we discovered another two, bringing the total to six. There are three specimens, including the type, in the Natural History Museum in London, two in the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a single mounted skin in the Zanzibar Museum. In Autumn 2008 we published an article in the Newsletter of the IUCN/SSC Cat Specialist Group outlining what we know about each of the museum specimens and their provenance (Martin Walsh and Helle Goldman, 'Updating the Inventory of Zanzibar Leopard Specimens', CAT News, 49: 4-6). We also included a section on material to be found (and lost!) outside of museums, and this is reproduced below:

"All of the museum specimens that we have identified were collected in the first half of the 20th century, during the British colonial period. We know that significant numbers of leopards were killed in the second half of the century, many of them in a government-sanctioned campaign of leopard extermination that began after the Zanzibar Revolution of 1964 (Walsh & Goldman 2007). What happened to all of the skins? In the 1970s at least some of them were delivered to the state shoe factory, which processed hides and skins (Halsted 1979), but their ultimate destination is obscure. Some pieces of skin and other leopard body parts believed to have magico-medicinal properties must have remained in Zanzibar (see below). Local leopard skins that found their way onto the international market were presumably mixed up with others from East Africa and the Horn. It is possible that complete skins found their way into private collections, but we have no evidence for this at present.

When we began our research on the Zanzibar leopard in the mid-1990s we occasionally heard of skins being offered for sale by local hunters, and of some being taken to the African mainland or the Persian Gulf (Marshall 1994, Selkow 1995, Goldman & Walsh 1997, Palmer 2005). In his dissertation for the College of African Wildlife Management at Mweka, Khamis A. Khamis (1995) claimed that he had photographed the skin and claws of a Zanzibar leopard killed (at an unspecified location) in September 1993, having paid for permission to do so. At least eleven leopards are reported to have been killed in Zanzibar in 1993 (Goldman & Walsh 2002), and it not possible using available records to determine which if any of these Khamis was referring to. We also do not know the current whereabouts of his photograph.

The only leopard skin that we have seen ourselves outside of a museum are two rectangular pieces in the possession of the former Secretary of the Zanzibar National Hunters (Wasasi wa Kitaifa), who assisted us in our research in July 1996. These two fragments were said to have been taken from a leopard that was killed by hunters at Muyuni, on the south-west coast of Unguja, in 1986. Photographs of the two pieces that appeared in our original report (Goldman & Walsh 1997) were later lost in the offices of the Jozani-Chwaka Bay Conservation Project (JCBCP), but pictures of one of the pieces [see photo] survive and have been used in subsequent publications (the pdf version of the report and Walsh & Goldman 2007).

A number of Zanzibari hunters claim to be able to identify leopard faeces, but efforts to collect and preserve specimens for later analysis have so far proved unsuccessful. On 12 March 1997 HVG collected dessicated scat, said to be leopard, in the vicinity of Hazungukwa cave in Kitogani, south-east of Jozani Forest. However, this specimen was also lost in JCBCP offices before it could be properly analyzed. A similar fate befell a relatively fresh specimen that was collected by forestry staff on 19 August 2001 at the site of a reputed leopard kill (or kills) at Wangwani within the boundaries of what is now Jozani-Chwaka Bay National Park. A search for this specimen at Forestry headquarters in Zanzibar town, undertaken for MTW on 5 April 2002, proved fruitless, and it was presumed that a cleaner or other staff member had thrown it away.

It was suggested that these losses might not have been accidental, but a consequence of the fear that many Zanzibaris have for the leopard and anything associated with it. The Zanzibar leopard is widely believed to be used for nefarious purposes by witches, and unprotected contact with leopards and leopard parts is thought to cause serious illness, one of the symptoms of which is the vomiting or excretion of fur (Goldman & Walsh 1997). But hunters and others who have taken out magical insurance against this kind of harm are more relaxed about handling leopard products, which have their own magical and medicinal uses. An American student, Scott Marshall (1994), was shown the claws of a leopard said to have been killed three years earlier; and in September 1994 the adventurer Lajos Jozsa (a.k.a. Louis Palmer) photographed leopard claws in the possession of a man in a village near Jozani (pers. comm. 2005, Palmer 2005).

It may still be possible to obtain fragments of leopard skin and other material of local provenance in Zanzibar, if not complete specimens. Leopard products are no longer sold openly in the traditional herbalists’ shops in Zanzibar town, though they are alleged to be available in some of them ‘under the counter’. Our own experience suggests that Zanzibar leopard parts might be more readily obtained from hunters and herbalists in rural Unguja, though the possibility of securing fresh or near-contemporary material is surely diminishing, if it has not disappeared altogether."

References

Goldman, H. V. and Walsh M. T. 1997. A Leopard in Jeopardy: An Anthropological Survey of Practices and Beliefs which Threaten the Survival of the Zanzibar Leopard (Panthera pardus adersi). Zanzibar Forestry Technical Paper 63, Jozani Chwaka Bay Conservation Project, Commission for Natural Resources, Zanzibar. 59 pp.

Goldman, H. V. and Walsh M. T. 2002. Is the Zanzibar leopard (Panthera pardus adersi) extinct? Journal of East African Natural History 91 (1/2), 15-25.

Halsted, D. C. 1979. Birds and larger mammals of Zanzibar. EANHS [East Africa Natural History Society] Bulletin (March-April), 41-45.

Khamis, K. A. 1995. Report on the Status of Zanzibar Leopards from 15th Dec. 1994 to June 1995 in Different Times at Zanzibar. Unpublished certificate student’s dissertation, College of African Wildlife Management, Mweka, Tanzania. 9 pp.

Marshall, S. 1994. The Status of the Zanzibar Leopard. Unpublished paper, School for International Training, Tanzania, and Commission for Natural Resources, Zanzibar. 17 pp.

Palmer, L. 2005. Verrückt nach dieser Welt: Abenteur zwischen Himmel und Erde. Delius Klasing Verlag, Bielefeld.

Selkow, B. 1995. A Survey of Villager Perceptions of the Zanzibar Leopard. Unpublished paper, School for International Training, Tanzania, and Commission for Natural Resources, Zanzibar. 28 pp.

Walsh, M. T. and Goldman, H. V. 2007. Killing the king: the demonization and extermination of the Zanzibar leopard / Tuer le roi: la diabolisation et l’extermination du leopard de Zanzibar. In Le symbolisme des animaux: L'animal, clef de voûte de la relation entre l'homme et la nature? / Animal symbolism: Animals, keystone in the relationship between man and nature? Dounias, E., Motte-Florac, É. and Dunham, M. (Eds.). Éditions de l’IRD, Paris. pp. 1133-1182.

THE GHOST LEOPARD OF ZANZIBAR

2009-09-24T07:47:00.000-07:00

Following Martin Walsh's participation in The Nightmare (Paradocs Productions, 2008), a documentary about sleep paralysis and its cultural manifestations, Canadian directors Adam and Andrew Gray are pitching a film about The Ghost Leopard of Zanzibar, aka the Zanzibar leopard. Here's the text of their proposed treatment:

THE GHOST LEOPARD OF ZANZIBAR
(60 min HD)

DESCRIPTION

The Ghost Leopard of Zanzibar is a cryptozoological adventure story about one man’s search and attempt to save a species whose fascinating mythology and long association with witchcraft has led to its almost complete eradication.

SYNOPSIS

A documentary crew follow an anthropologist and his team on the expedition of a life time - to search for the allegedly extinct and never-before photographed Zanzibar Leopard. In the 20th century this elusive predator was the victim of a sustained campaign of extermination by islanders who feared its reputation for man-eating and association with witchcraft and sorcery. If the team can obtain photographic proof that the Zanzibar Leopard still lives they may be able to help save it from extinction.

The story of the Zanzibar Leopard is a microcosm for the tragedy of the imminent extinction of big cats around the world. It is a story of shrinking habitats and the clash between man and beast. It is the story of a species that has been demonized and all but doomed to become a legend.

The Zanzibar Leopard evolved on this Indian Ocean island in isolation from the rest of Africa, making it an entirely unique sub-species. The islanders believe that the leopards are secretly kept as pets by local sorcerers and used by them to harass their neighbours. Suspected leopard-keepers are both greatly feared and respected on the island. Village children and livestock have been dragged off and mauled in broad daylight by these otherwise nocturnal felids. Though there have been recent sightings and reports of attacks on livestock and other wildlife, no convincing physical proof of a leopard has been found on the island in more than a decade.

After the bloody Zanzibar Revolution of 1964, a horrific island-wide leopard eradication and witch-finding campaign took place from which the species has never recovered. Though there are no official reports of leopards being killed since 1995, it is widely believed that there are still leopard-keepers working in remote areas of the island.

Martin Walsh is an anthropologist from Cambridge University who has lived and worked in Zanzibar for many years, is a fluent speaker of Swahili and expert in local ethnozoology. He believes that conservationists have been too quick to declare the extinction of the Zanzibar Leopard and is determined to prove that it still exists. Film-makers Adam and Andrew Gray follow Dr. Walsh’s journey from Cambridge into the forests and thickets of Zanzibar - the hunting ground of the leopard and one the world’s most notorious hot-beds of sorcery and witchcraft. To help in this search Walsh enlists the skills of fellow researcher and camera-trap expert Helle Goldman and a team of traditional Zanzibari hunters.

This uniquely equipped team follows a trail of clues through the most remote corners of Zanzibar in an attempt to find and photograph the mysterious and deadly big cat. The Ghost Leopard of Zanzibar is an epic journey into a world of superstition and fear, in search of a creature that is as much supernatural legend as it is real.

© copyright Para Docs Productions Inc. 2009

THE ZANZIBAR LEOPARD IN NEW YORK

2009-07-03T10:15:00.001-07:00

This poster was shown in April 2008 at the Thirteenth Annual Symposium of the Center for Biodiversity and Conservation (Sustaining Cultural and Biological Diversity in a Rapidly Changing World: Lessons for Global Policy) in the American Museum of Natural History, New York:

THE ZANZIBAR LEOPARD IN OXFORD

2009-07-03T06:32:00.000-07:00

Here's the poster that we displayed at the Felid Biology and Conservation Conference in the University of Oxford Museum of Natural History in September 2007:

To view and/or download this (and other documents) use the Scribd toolbar at the top of the window.

THE ZANZIBAR LEOPARD ET AL. ON SCRIBD

2009-07-03T04:59:00.000-07:00

We've now posted some of our papers about the Zanzibar leopard, Zanzibar servaline genet and other small carnivores to the document-sharing website Scribd. They can all be viewed in and downloaded from the "Conservation" folder in Martin Walsh's collection of papers on the site.

Here are links to individual papers and posters:

Goldman, H. V. and Walsh, M. T. 2008. When Culture Threatens the Conservation of Biological Diversity: The Tragic Case of the Zanzibar Leopard (Panthera pardus adersi). Poster presented to Sustaining Cultural and Biological Diversity in a Rapidly Changing World: Lessons for Global Policy, Thirteenth Annual Symposium of the Center for Biodiversity and Conservation, American Museum of Natural History, New York, 2-5 April 2008.

Goldman, H. V. and Walsh, M. T. 2007. Human-Wildlife Conflict, Unequal Knowledge and the Failure to Conserve the Zanzibar Leopard (Panthera pardus adersi). Poster presented to the Felid Biology and Conservation Conference, Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU), University of Oxford, 17-21 September 2007.

Walsh, M. T. & Goldman, H. V. 2007. Killing the King: The Demonization and Extermination of the Zanzibar Leopard / Tuer le roi: la diabolisation et l’extermination du leopard de Zanzibar. In Edmond Dounias, Elisabeth Motte-Florac and Margaret Dunham (eds.) Le symbolisme des animaux: L'animal, clef de voûte de la relation entre l'homme et la nature? / Animal symbolism: Animals, keystone of the relationship between man and nature? (collection ‘colloques et séminaires’). Paris: Éditions de l’IRD (Institut de recherché pour le développement). 1133-1182.

Goldman, H. V., Winther-Hansen, J. & Walsh, M. T. 2004. Zanzibar’s Recently Discovered Servaline Genet. Nature East Africa, 34 (2): 5-7.

Walsh, M. T. & Goldman, H. V. 2004. The Zanzibar Leopard – Dead or Alive? Tanzanian Affairs, 77: 20-23.

Walsh, M. T. & Goldman, H. V. 2003. The Zanzibar Leopard between Science and Cryptozoology. Nature East Africa, 33 (1/2): 14-16.

Goldman, H. V. & Winther-Hansen, J. 2003. The Small Carnivores of Unguja: Results of a Photo-trapping Survey in Jozani Forest Reserve, Zanzibar, Tanzania. Tromso, Norway.

Goldman, H. V. & Walsh, M. T. 2002. Is the Zanzibar Leopard (Panthera pardus adersi) Extinct? Journal of East African Natural History, 91 (1/2): 15-25 (plus the map that was published as an erratum in the 2003 issue: Journal of East African Natural History, 92 (1/2): 4).

Our original report on the Zanzibar leopard is still online on the website of the Zanzibar Department of Commercial Crops, Fruits and Forestry (DCCFF):

Goldman, H. V. & Walsh, M. T. 1997. A Leopard in Jeopardy: An Anthropological Survey of Practices and Beliefs which Threaten the Survival of the Zanzibar Leopard (Panthera pardus adersi). Zanzibar Forestry Technical Paper No.63 / report to Jozani Chwaka Bay Conservation Project, Commission for Natural Resources, Zanzibar.

The following unpublished study also includes a section on the Zanzibar leopard:

Walsh, M. T. & Harvey, S. P. 1997. Understanding and Engaging Local Knowledge and Practice: Practical Approaches to Natural Resources Research and Development. Unpublished monograph prepared for the Natural Resources Institute, University of Greenwich, Chatham.

Further reference to the leopard and other carnivores on Unguja can be found in the following paper:

Walsh, M. T. 2007. Island Subsistence: Hunting, Trapping and the Translocation of Wildlife in the Western Indian Ocean. Azania, 42 (Special issue: Stephanie Wynne-Jones (ed.) The Indian Ocean as a Cultural Community): 83-113. (With an online appendix: ‘Island Mammal Lists and Local Names’).

R. H. W. Pakenham's unpublished monograph on the mammals of Zanzibar is also available on Scribd:

Pakenham, R. H. W. 1984. The Mammals of Zanzibar and Pemba Islands. Harpenden: privately printed.

ZANZIBAR’S RECENTLY DISCOVERED SERVALINE GENET

2009-04-03T06:16:00.000-07:00

by Helle Goldman, Jon Winther-Hansen and Martin Walsh

[This is the text of an article published in 2004 in Nature East Africa, 34 (2): 5-7.]

Servaline Genets Genetta servalina have long been known from Central Africa and isolated patches in East Africa, but it was not until the 1990s that they were documented on Unguja, the main island of the Zanzibar archipelago. In 1995 Tony Archer acquired a dried, somewhat damaged skin and skull in the village of Kitogani, in the south–central part of Unguja. This specimen was subsequently described as belonging to a new subspecies of Servaline Genet, G. s. archeri (Van Rompaey and Colyn, 1998).

In January 2003 live Zanzibar Servaline Genets were photographed for the first time. Camera traps set up in Jozani–Chwaka Bay National Park yielded pictures of these endemic genets at four locations: two in the lush groundwater forest that comprises the heart of the park: two in the dry scrub to the north-east. As well as providing information about the genet’s occurrence and distribution, these pictures have also added to our knowledge of its physical characteristics, including the colour of its pelt (Goldman and Winther-Hansen, 2003a; 2003b).

Like other members of the viverrid family which are adapted to forest life, Servaline Genets are boldly marked. Their bodies have black spots against a tan to ochre background and their long tails are ringed in black and light-coloured bands. The combined length of the head and body is about 41–50 cm, the tail is 35–44 cm long and they weigh in the range of 1 to 2 kg (Kingdon, 1997). That an animal of the Servaline Genet’s dimensions and striking appearance can have eluded scientific discovery until just a few years ago on the flat, relatively small and very densely inhabited island of Unguja is challenging to explain, even if they are shy, solitary and nocturnal.

Rural Zanzibaris have of course known about the Servaline Genet all along and have described it in their own terms to curious naturalists. Unfortunately few researchers have systematically recorded the local Swahili dialect names for small carnivores or attempted to identify them in the field (the principal exception being Pakenham, 1959).

In the case of the Servaline Genet this problem is made more acute by the fact that it seems to be given different local names – and while some informants recognize these as the names of a single animal, others believe that they refer to different species.

In the course of our own field research on Unguja, over the past decade, we have elicited a number of different local names that individual informants give to the Servaline Genet – or at least to a small carnivore that partly matches its description – though there is by no means unanimous agreement on this score. The most widespread name is ushundwi (variant ushundi) and there seems to be little doubt that this is indeed a name for the Servaline Genet. A similar degree of confidence applies to another name, uchui, though this is much less widely known. This second name (and its variant uchui umwangu) refers to the leopard-like characteristics of the genet, chui being the common Swahili name for leopards.

Informants are rather less certain about a third name, uhange, sometimes identified with ushundwi and uchui, but often described as a different animal, which is reddish in colour (though not to be confused with the rufous Zanzibar Slender Mongoose, Herpestes sanguineus rufescens).

Similar doubt exists over the proper application of another, less common, term, ukwiri.

Van Rompaey & Colyn (1998) suggest that both of these names – which were first recorded by Pakenham (1959) – might refer to the Zanzibar Servaline Genet, but this remains to be proven.

Further research is needed to sort out these ethnotaxonomic uncertainties, linking local names and descriptions to actual specimens and observations in the field. It may also be that the current inventory of Unguja’s small carnivores is incomplete. The recent scientific discovery and photo-trapping of the Zanzibar Servaline Genet suggest that perhaps this small Indian Ocean island has yet to give up all of its zoological secrets. It is quite possible that Unguja is home to other undescribed endemic small carnivores, unknown to science, but known to rural Zanzibaris by one or more of the names discussed above.

References

Goldman, H. V. and Winther-Hansen, J. 2003a. The Small Carnivores of Unguja: Results of a Photo-trapping Survey in Jozani Forest Reserve, Zanzibar, Tanzania. Tromsø: privately printed.

Goldman, H. V. and Winther-Hansen, J. 2003b. ‘First Photographs of the Zanzibar Servaline Genet, Genetta servalina archeri, and Other Endemic Subspecies on the Island of Unguja, Tanzania’, Small Carnivore Conservation 29: 1-4.

Kingdon, J. 1997. The Kingdon Field Guide to African Mammals. San Diego: Academic Press.

Pakenham, R. H. W. 1959. ‘Kiswahili Names of Birds and Beasts in the Zanzibar Protectorate’, Swahili: The Journal of the East African Swahili Committee 29 (1): 34-54.

Van Rompaey, H. and Colyn, M. 1998. ‘A New Servaline Genet (Carnivora, Viverridae) from Zanzibar Island’, South African Journal of Zoology 33: 42–46.

THE ZANZIBAR LEOPARD: An Anthropological Survey (End of Fieldwork Summary)

2009-04-02T03:56:00.000-07:00

by Martin Walsh
Zanzibar, 21 July 1996

[As its opening sentence explains, this is the written version of a briefing given to colleagues at Maruhubi following completion of our fieldwork in July 1996. The actual briefing session proved quite challenging because we didn't want to directly criticise the many members of our audience for whom witchcraft and leopard-keeping were well-established facts. Indeed debate following our presentation focused on leopard-keeping, and included discussion of a suggestion that leopard keepers might be persuaded to display their leopards in a zoo and take part in a monitored captive breeding programme. A radio reporter was present at the meeting but we weren't aware of any subsequent broadcasts that mentioned it. The written briefing and its provisional conclusions were superseded by our final report, A Leopard in Jeopardy, which eventually appeared in 1997.]

Introduction

The following brief report presents the provisional findings of a consultancy on the Zanzibar Leopard undertaken in the first three weeks of July 1996. It is a worked up version of a verbal presentation given in the Sub Commission for Forestry on Friday 19 July, and is based upon a preliminary assessment of fieldwork results and discussions within the Jozani Chwaka Bay Conservation Project (JCBCP) and the Wildlife subunit in the Conservation Section of the Sub commission for Forestry (SCF). The final report of the consultancy is due to be submitted by the end of August 1996, and will expand at length upon the points raised (and some not raised) in this summary.

Research Methods

The research team comprised four persons: Dr Martin T. Walsh (consultant anthropologist and team leader), Dr Helle V. Goldman (anthropologist, JCBCP), Ali Ali Mwinyi (Wildlife Officer, JCBCP/SCF), and Suleiman Iddi Hamadi (former Secretary and now Assistant Secretary of the Wasasi wa Kitaifa (WwK), National Hunters). The research undertaken by the team included the following principal components: (a) review of relevant literature and documentation, including official files, both current and in the Zanzibar National Archives; (b) formal and informal meetings with resource persons in Zanzibar town, including representatives of relevant government institutions; (c) interviews and discussions with individual Zanzibaris, including past and present hunters, and a cross section of villagers and townspeople (both men and women). A large part of the consultancy was devoted to the semi structured interviews with hunters in villages throughout Zanzibar. Fieldwork during the second week was facilitated by the division of the team into two pairs who worked independently in different locations (MTW / SIH and HVG / AAM).

The Zanzibar Leopard: Significance and Status

The conservation of the Zanzibar Leopard is important for three interconnected reasons:

Potential National Significance

The Leopard (Panthera pardus) is Unguja’s (and Zanzibar’s) only wild felid and its largest carnivore. As many interviewees on the island emphasised, ‘chui ni mfalme’, ‘the leopard is the king’. Like many small islands Unguja has a much reduced mammalian fauna (including a total of 29 known terrestrial species, some of them introduced), and the presence of the leopard is therefore all the more noteworthy. Indeed, Unguja is the only offshore island in the western Indian Ocean possessing a population of leopards. From this perspective the existence of the Zanzibar Leopard could and should be a source of national pride, an additional point of attraction for ecologically minded tourists, and a focus for attracting extra funds for conservation of the island’s biodiversity.

Global Scientific Significance

The Zanzibar Leopard is unique. It has been physically separated from its mainland cousins for at least 10,000 years and has possibly existed as an isolated breeding population for much longer. Apparent morphological differences (its small size and distinctive coat pattern) have led some authorities to treat it as a separate subspecies under the name Panthera pardus adersi (Pocock, 1932). Descriptions of the Zanzibar Leopard are, however, based upon no more than a handful of specimens. Next to nothing is known about its ecology and behaviour, or how these might differ from that of other leopards. The long genetic isolation of the Zanzibar Leopard in a distinctive small island habitat (with no known large sized competitors or prey in recent times apart from Homo sapiens sapiens and the latter’s domesticates) makes it a prime candidate for further study, a task which is all the more urgent given the current threats to its survival.

Current Conservation Status

A number of authors have presumed the Zanzibar Leopard to be extinct, and the IUCN/SSC Cat Specialist Group’s Wild Cats includes a distribution map which indicates that it has been ‘extirpated’ (1996, p.27). Fortunately this is not yet the case, though our research provided a number of indications that the Zanzibar Leopard may well be close to the brink of extirpation, and will almost certainly disappear if the current level of culling continues.

Given the small size of Unguja island (c.1,650 km2) and what we know of the highest recorded densities of leopards elsewhere, the maximum population which the island could support is probably in the low hundreds, while a figure of around 150 adult individuals would seem to be more realistic. This rough and ready estimate suggests that the Zanzibar Leopard population has always been vulnerable, though it has clearly remained viable over a long period of time. The development and expansion of human settlement and agriculture over the past two millennia, and especially during the past two centuries, have rendered the leopard population even more vulnerable. Events over the past three decades or so have pushed this population to critically low levels.

The British colonial authorities recognised at an early stage that the Zanzibar Leopard was vulnerable, and in 1919 it was placed on a schedule of animals whose killing and utilisation was prohibited without explicit permission. With this measure of protection, leopards appear to have thrived, especially in the coral rag forests and thickets on the north, east and south of the island. As human population grew and the farming frontier expanded, attacks upon people and domestic stock increased in frequency, and in 1950 the government bowed to popular pressure and removed the Zanzibar Leopard from the protected list. Permits were still required to hunt leopards, but in the aftermath of the Zanzibar Revolution of 1964 this and other provisions of the Wild Animals Protection Decree (CAP.128 of 1919) and the Zanzibar Leopard Exception Order (G.N.30 of 1950) were generally either forgotten or ignored.

The culling of leopards began in earnest in the mid 1960s when the Revolutionary Government sanctioned the leopard killing and witch finding campaign of Mzee Kitanzi. There are no written records of the number of leopards killed during the Kitanzi campaign, which lasted into the early 1970s, but informants estimate that well over 100 were killed island wide, and as many as 70 in the Jozani area alone. The killing has continued, albeit less systematically, through to the present. We have written records of more than 100 kills in the decade 1985 94: unrecorded kills would probably push this figure much higher. The rate of kills appears to have remained more or less constant over this decade, but has dropped off in the last two years, presumably because there are relatively few leopards left to kill.

Generous estimates put the number of leopards surviving at around 50: the real figure may well be lower than this. The overall distribution of the Zanzibar Leopard has certainly contracted: on many parts of the coral rag where it was formerly common there have been no sightings or other evidence of its presence for a number of years (for example in the north between Matemwe and Nungwi, on Uzi island, and in the far south east around Makunduchi). All of the available evidence suggests that the population is now very low, and that the Zanzibar Leopard is seriously endangered. Even if the killing can be curtailed, there must be serious doubts about its long term survival, both in terms of genetic viability and in view of the ongoing process of habitat destruction and loss of prey species. If the Zanzibar Leopard is to be saved, urgent action is clearly required.

The Extermination of the Zanzibar Leopard

Who is Doing the Killing?

Leopards are almost always killed by male hunters, usually hunting with dogs and shotguns, or in some areas (for example the far south) with spears. A number are killed at night by hunters equipped, illegally, with head torches. Three different categories of hunters are involved (the only three broad categories existing in Zanzibar):

(1) The Wasasi wa Kitaifa (National Hunters). This is the official name of a nationally organised body of hunters which has its origins in the late colonial period and has been fully sponsored by the government since the Revolution of 1964. Its official task is to carry out vermin control, while sport and financial gain from the sale of wildlife products are among the primary motives of the varying number of individuals who take part in its activities. National hunts take place on Sundays (sometimes beginning Saturday evenings) at prearranged locations where the national hunters may also join up with village hunters and others who come along for the entertainment. In the past official hunts were also organised at lower levels of the administrative hierarchy, but the former system has largely broken down, and only national hunts are held with any regularity. The explicit prime target of most of these hunts are Bush Pigs (Potamochoerus porcus), though they are sometimes organised against Blue / Sykes’ Monkeys (Cercopithecus mitis). Other animals, however, are also killed during the hunts; including, on occasion, leopards.

(2) Private town based hunters. There is one well known group of private hunters based in Zanzibar town, who typically set up camp in favoured locations and hunt in the area for a number of days (currently they use two camps regularly: they have been excluded from a third site by local villagers). This small group of hunters sometimes employs local village hunters, and may also be joined from time to time (as is the national hunt) by visiting sport hunters from Muscat or elsewhere in the Arabian peninsula. They have also been reported to kill leopards on occasion, though less often than the Wasasi wa Kitaifa (although this may be a function of the fact that the latter keep records while private hunters are under no requirement to do so).

(3) Village hunters. Available records suggest that more leopards are killed by local village hunters than by the other categories. Hunting and the sale of wildlife products (especially the meat of paa, mini antelope) provides some of these hunters with their principal source of income, though the regularity and intensity with which they hunt varies. In some areas hunting is practised by youths as well as men, though in general it is only the middle aged and older men who have extensive experience of leopard hunting and therefore a reasonably good knowledge of the Zanzibar Leopard and its behaviour. This is a function of the fact that leopards are encountered with much less frequency than they once were, except by very active hunters in areas where the animals are still permanently present in numbers.

More details on past and present hunting practices and the hunters’ knowledge of the Zanzibar Leopard will be presented in the final report.

Why are Leopards Being Killed?

While leopards are sometimes killed accidentally (when mistaken at night for another animal) or deliberately to enhance the status of the hunter, the two main reasons for killing leopards are as follows:

(1) It is generally believed that some (but not all) leopards are ‘kept’ by certain individuals and used by them to intimidate and harass their fellow villagers. This belief (which is no more than a belief) is elaborated in many ways, and incorporates details of how the leopards are bred, fed, and trained by their collective owners, who are classed as witches (wachawi) and therefore widely feared. Belief in leopard keeping has a long history and predates the Kitanzi campaign, which in effect represented the culmination of series of localised efforts to neutralise the leopard keepers and exterminate the leopards which were at their command. Fear of leopard keepers still provides a strong motive for killing leopards, though it also makes it a somewhat perilous enterprise. Some hunters are so afraid that they will avoid killing leopards for this reason. Others, however, including those who were ritually protected during the Kitanzi campaign, are not so afraid, though they will often take care to conceal the fact that they have killed a leopard and take magical precautions against any possible retribution from the leopard’s owners. This is one of the main reasons why leopard kills are underreported. At the same time, the evident decline in the leopard population, and therefore in the number of presumed leopard keepers, has made it easier for some hunters, especially younger men, to kill leopards (including ‘wild’ leopards) without compunction and talk freely about their leopard hunting.

The belief in leopard keeping provides a neat explanation for leopards’ propensity to visit settled areas and prey upon livestock and in some cases attack humans. ‘Kept’ and ‘wild’ leopards are distinguished in the folk belief by their differential behaviour in this regard: any leopard which in seen in the vicinity of settlement, harasses people and their livestock, or does not run away when encountered is automatically assumed to be a ‘kept’ leopard. Leopards which are seen deep in the bush and flee from human contact can safely be assumed to be ‘wild’, though sometimes an element of doubt remains. Conflict between human and leopard populations has therefore provided the underlying reason for much of the culling of the latter by the former. The resulting drastic decline in the leopard population has seen this conflict reduce accordingly, to the extent that many hunters and ordinary villagers are now willing to countenance efforts to conserve the ‘wild’ leopard, providing that they can be prevented from harassing humans and their livestock. It is also evident that a growing number of people, especially the young and educated, look upon the belief in leopard keeping somewhat sceptically. This is particularly the case in Zanzibar town, where some young people do not know or are only dimly aware of the Zanzibar Leopard’s existence and the activities of its alleged keepers.

(2) Unfortunately, hunters have another good reason for killing leopards, whether they fear leopard keepers or not. There is a market in leopard skins, each of which may fetch around Tsh.30,000 (= US$ 50: one of a number of quotes we obtained) for the hunter who sells it. During and for some years after the Kitanzi campaign leopard skins were delivered to the government, to be sold on what was then an open market. At some point, probably before the international ban on trade, this system broke down, leaving no official guidelines at all regarding the disposal of skins. The black market has filled this gap. After passing through one or two middlemen (and rising in price accordingly), most skins are said to find their way to the Tanzanian mainland, en route, presumably to somewhere else (the Gulf / Arabian peninsula was suggested as one likely destination). The Zanzibar end of this trade is evidently not very well organised - hunters may sometimes wait for a month or longer before they can find a buyer - and this probably reflects the fact that the local supply is very limited and many of the skins of inferior quality and size to those which can be found on the mainland. Nonetheless, this trade in skins gives hunters an important incentive to kill leopards: some hunters earn most of their living from the sale of wildlife products, and leopard skins are among the most highly valued of these.

Dead leopards are the source of other products, though none as valuable as the complete skins. The oesophagus and larynx of a killed leopard is usually removed for ritual purposes: consumption of this part of the leopard’s anatomy, together with other medicines, is thought to provide reliable protection against the wrath of a leopard’s keepers, should it have had any and the identity of the hunter is discovered. Claws, tufts of fur and strips of the skin all have a variety of medicinal uses, and are often kept by the hunter and/or given away to friends or sold. Medicines made from the appropriate parts of leopards are said to be available in a well known herbalist’s shop in Zanzibar town, though they are not offered for sale openly. The Kitanzi campaign initiated the practice of eating leopard meat, a way for hunters to demonstrate their lack of fear and contempt for the leopard keepers. Nowadays the meat is more usually fed to a hunter’s dogs, a useful source of extra protein and a quick way of disposing of the evidence of a kill (this was the fate of three leopard cubs killed in the Dimani area earlier this year).

There are, therefore, sufficient reasons for hunters to kill leopards whenever they chance upon them. The days of organised leopard hunting have long since passed, largely because there are not enough leopards left to make such hunts worthwhile. Opportunistic killing is, however, perfectly capable of finishing off the survivors, and stopping this practice must be the first target of efforts to conserve the Zanzibar Leopard.

The Conservation of the Zanzibar Leopard

Different options for the conservation of the Zanzibar Leopard will be considered in detail in the final report of this study. Given the leopard’s endangered status, the first priority of any programme must be to curtail, as far as possible, killing by hunters. The enforcement of existing legislation and its widespread publicisation is an obvious first step. This will require close consultation between the Commission for Natural Resources (which should be responsible for the issuing of hunting permits) and other government bodies involved, particularly the officially sponsored Wasasi wa Kitaifa. The current institutional position of the Wasasi wa Kitaifa means that they can potentially play an important role in promoting leopard conservation as well as that of other protected species. However, considering the fact that most leopards are killed by village hunters, it is evident that a conservation programme will not succeed in the long term unless it addresses the aspirations and fears of local stakeholders, regardless of whatever controls are imposed or recommended from above. From this point of view, careful consideration must be given to the extent to which leopard conservation can and should be handled as an isolated issue, and to what extent it might be linked to the wider issues of biodiversity protection and wildlife / natural resource management at the community level. There is clearly scope for both approaches to be followed in a complementary fashion, with the Zanzibar Leopard acting as another ‘flagship’ species for the island’s conservation: assuming, of course, that it stays around for long enough to do so.

THE ZANZIBAR LEOPARD BETWEEN SCIENCE AND CRYPTOZOOLOGY

2009-03-31T01:23:00.000-07:00

by Martin Walsh and Helle Goldman

[text (with updated references) of an article originally published in 2003 in Nature East Africa, 33 (1/2): 14-16. An abridged version, 'The Zanzibar Leopard – Dead or Alive?', was published in 2004 in Tanzanian Affairs, 77: 20-23]

The Zanzibar Leopard, Panthera pardus adersi, is an elusive and possibly extinct subspecies endemic to Unguja (Zanzibar) Island. It has presumably been evolving in isolation from other leopards since at least the end of the last Ice Age, when Unguja was separated from the Tanzanian mainland by rising sea levels. The “founder effect” (genetic characteristics of the marooned population) and/or adaptation to local island conditions produced a smaller leopard than its continental relatives and one which “changed its spots”, or rather saw its more numerous rosettes partially disintegrate into spots (Pakenham, 1984; Kingdon, 1989).

Not much is known about the biology of the Zanzibar Leopard. Visitors to the natural history section of the Zanzibar Museum will be familiar with the stuffed and rather faded specimen kept in a display case there together with an old black and white photograph of a leopard trap. Apart from scraps of pelt furtively kept by hunters, to date we have only located five other skins: three in the Natural History Museum in London and two in the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Of these only the type specimen in London and the two Harvard skins are accompanied by their skulls.

The Zanzibar Leopard’s behaviour is also poorly understood. It has never been studied in the wild and the last time a researcher claimed in print to have seen one was in the early 1980s. Rural Zanzibaris’ descriptions of the leopard and its habits are coloured by the widespread belief that an alarming number of these carnivores are kept by witches (wachawi) and sent by them to harm or otherwise harass their fellow villagers. This belief comes together with an elaborate package of ideas about how leopards are bred, trained, exchanged and sent to do the evil bidding of their owners. For local farmers this supplies a neat explanation for predation by leopards on livestock and humans, and more generally for their appearance “out of place” in the vicinity of farms and villages (Goldman and Walsh, 1997).

The growth of human population and agriculture in the 20th century was largely responsible for this state of affairs, as people encroached on the habitat of leopards and the animals they preyed upon. Increasing conflict with leopards and the fear that this generated led to a series of campaigns to exterminate them. These were localised at first, but became island-wide after the Zanzibar Revolution, when a combined anti-witchcraft and leopard-killing campaign was launched under the leadership of Unguja’s most famous witch-finder, Kitanzi. The long-term result of this campaign and the subsequent classification of leopards as “vermin” was to bring them to the brink of extinction (Walsh and Goldman, 2003).

The available evidence suggests that when we began our joint research on the Zanzibar Leopard in the mid-1990s there were still a few of these elusive animals remaining (Goldman and Walsh, 2002). Now we can’t be so sure. Most zoologists think that this island leopard is extinct: indeed some of them already thought so when we began our joint study in 1996. This pessimistic conclusion scotched subsequent proposals for a conservation initiative targeting the Zanzibar Leopard: if they were gone or going then there wasn’t much point in trying to do anything about it - apart from supporting the habitat conservation initiatives that were already underway on the island.

By contrast, the majority of people who live and work on the “coral rag” lands of southern and eastern of Unguja, including government staff and conservationists, believe that the Zanzibar Leopard has not been completely exterminated. Claims of sightings abound, as do reports of other evidence for leopards’ continued presence on the island and their nefarious use by witches. Many of these reports are difficult to evaluate and impossible to verify independently. So far none of the cases that we have investigated over the past two years (2002-03) has produced confirmation of a sighting or other leopard signs.

The recent scientific “discovery” of the Zanzibar Servaline Genet, Genetta servalina archeri, previously known only to islanders themselves, suggests that perhaps Unguja has yet to give up all of its zoological secrets. This small carnivore, another island endemic, was first described from an old skin and skull obtained in 1995. Its status was uncertain until a number of individuals were photo-trapped in January 2003 (Goldman and Winther-Hansen, 2003a; 2003b). If the Zanzibar Leopard survives, then similar standards of proof will have to be applied for any record to be acceptable to the scientific community. Otherwise most of us will get no closer to it than that faded museum specimen and those colourful cryptozoological narratives.

Acknowledgements
In addition to all of the people and institutions acknowledged in our original (1997) report, we would like to thank Daphne Hills in the Zoology Department (Mammal Group) of the Natural History Museum, London, and Judith Chupasko and Mark Omura in the Mammal Department, Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology, for facilitating the examination and recording of specimens.

References

Goldman, H. V. and Walsh, M. T. 1997. A Leopard in Jeopardy: An Anthropological Survey of Practices and Beliefs Which Threaten the Survival of the Zanzibar Leopard (Panthera pardus adersi), Zanzibar Forestry Technical Paper No. 63, Jozani Chwaka Bay Conservation Project, Commission for Natural Resources, Zanzibar.

Goldman, H. V. and Walsh, M. T. 2002. ‘Is the Zanzibar Leopard (Panthera pardus adersi) Extinct?’, Journal of East African Natural History 91 (1/2): 15-25. [with separate map]

Goldman, H. V. and Winther-Hansen, J. 2003a. The Small Carnivores of Unguja: Results of a Photo-trapping Survey in Jozani Forest Reserve, Zanzibar, Tanzania. Tromsø: privately printed.

Goldman, H. V. and Winther-Hansen, J. 2003b. ‘First Photographs of the Zanzibar Servaline Genet, Genetta servalina archeri, and Other Endemic Subspecies on the Island of Unguja, Tanzania’, Small Carnivore Conservation 29: 1-4.

Kingdon, J. 1989. Island Africa: The Evolution of Africa's Rare Animals and Plants. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Pakenham, R. H. W. 1984. The Mammals of Zanzibar and Pemba Islands. Harpenden: privately printed.

Walsh, M. T. and Goldman, H. V. 2003. ‘Killing the King: Political Imperatives and the Extermination of the Zanzibar Leopard’, paper presented to the International Symposium on Le Symbolisme des animaux: l’animal “clef de voûte” dans la tradition orale et les interactions homme-nature, Paris (Villejuif), France, 12-14 November 2003.