Cruel poachers laugh as they show off the corpse of a rare clouded leopard after it was hunted down and killed in its natural habitat in Malaysia
- Poachers uploaded the images of them smiling with the cat’s corpse in Tampin
- The hunters lifted the clouded leopard by its bloodied fur and held up its head
- The pictures were quickly deleted but were shared on a conservationist page
- Clouded leopards are extremely rare, considered ‘vulnerable’ and red listed
Poachers have been pictured sickeningly laughing while they hold the bloodied corpse of a rare clouded leopard in Malaysia.
The photographs were brazenly uploaded to Facebook by a used named as Max Mantra who took them in the town of Tampin, in the west of the country.
They showed the grinning hunters lifting the beast, holding up its blood-stained head and slinging it over their backs.
The clouded leopard is an extremely rare species, with an estimated total of just 10,000 across the world in an ever decreasing population.
The poachers laugh as they hold the corpse of the clouded leopard in the town of Tampin, western Malaysia
Men pose for pictures beside the outstretched corpse of the leopard, in front of others in blue uniforms and orange berets thought to be officers of the Malaysian Civil Defence Force
One of the photos showed men in blue uniforms and orange berets in the background.
These are officers of the Malaysian Civil Defence Force, according to Siva Nadarajan who took screen shots of Mantra’s original upload.
The pictures were quickly deleted by Mantra, but not before Nadarajan posted them on the Facebook group Hiking and Camping Around Malaysia.
Nadarajan said in his post that he tried to call the Department of Wildlife and National Parks about the incident, but they told him ‘everyone has gone home’ and he could not make the complaint.
It is unclear whether he tried to report the poachers again.
One of the men holds up the lifeless head of the clouded leopard, whose fur is blood-stained after the hunt
Another image shows one of the group with the majestic animal slung over his shoulders, while another two pose for the camera
Mantra’s post on Facebook stated, ‘Caught in Tampin’ before the images were soon deleted
According to the Red List of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the clouded leopard is considered ‘vulnerable’.
Its natural habitat extends from the Himalayan foothills to the jungles of Malaysia.
The majestic cat has been extinct in Singapore and Taiwan for decades.