WildCats Conservation Alliance

Background

WildCats supports projects in 5 tiger range countries within Asia, including:

• Thailand – Indochinese tigers live in the highlands of Khao Laem National Park where they are under pressure due to a shortage of prey, disease, conflict with people, poaching and habitat loss. Funding is used to conduct surveys and ranger patrols, with rangers skilled in modern monitoring techniques, to build a clearer picture of tiger numbers, prey and threats, as well as improve disease monitoring and emergency response. Outreach in high-risk communities and educational awareness partnerships work to address illegal grazing and poaching. Funding is also used to tackle illegal tiger trade by linking online wildlife-trade monitoring with Thailand’s new enforcement systems, including knowledge sharing workshops for local law enforcement officers

• Nepal – Parsa National Park is home to Nepal’s largest Bengal tiger population where habitat quality is under pressure. Funding will support a census to provide updated data on tiger numbers and track population trends in comparison to the last census in 2022. Habitat quality will also be improved to support and increase tiger prey base population numbers to ensure tigers have everything they need within the national park to reduce their conflict with surrounding villages.

• Indonesia – Kerinci Seblat National Park holds the largest wild population of Sumatran tigers. Since 2000, WildCats has helped support actions to combat habitat loss, prey depletion, and human-tiger conflict, with the aim of increasing tiger numbers. Since 2017, WildCats has also been supporting a community outreach and guardianship programme to support ex-hunters with alternative livelihoods, such as training them to carry out patrols to deter poaching, along with collaboration with local leaders to strengthen tiger protection via increased awareness and public campaigns

• The Amur region – across this transboundary landscape they are funding two large scale projects; these cover a range of technical assistance support for national park staff through SMART training, providing equipment, population monitoring of both Amur leopards and tigers and community focused projects. Funding will enable analysis of 18 months of data from a connectivity study conducted in the Ussurisk Nature Reserve which began in 2025.

Achievements and Objectives

WildCats Conservation Alliance channels public and zoo support for wild tiger and Amur leopard conservation projects. WildCats has mobilised over £5m to support 103 monitoring, protection, conflict resolution, firefighting and awareness-raising projects since the year 2000.

In 2025, Colchester Zoological Society gave a contribution of £3,469 to support this project.

An exciting tiger and Amur leopard project in northeast China will also launch in 2026 that supports a new multi-year collaborative project focusing on addressing barriers to landscape connectivity.