Leopards are making a comeback in West Africa
West African leopards are among the most threatened big cats on Earth: only around 354 remain, holding on in a single stronghold, the vast conservation complex shared by Benin, Burkina Faso and Niger. Yet inside Benin's Pendjari National Park, something remarkable is happening. Between 2017 and 2023, researchers watched leopard density more than triple, from 0.62 to 2.08 animals per 100 square kilometres, with camera traps identifying 30 individuals and survival rates pointing to a population genuinely on the rise.
The recipe was patient and thorough: dedicated rangers, patrols against poaching backed by aerial surveillance, restored habitat, recovering prey, and, crucially, local communities brought into decision making rather than pushed aside, with engagement reaching 81% last year. All of it was achieved while armed groups in the wider region made fieldwork genuinely dangerous. "It's a win," says lead researcher Marine Drouilly, and it is more than that: proof that conservation can succeed even in the world's hardest places, when people and wildlife are looked after together.