West Africa's leopards are among the most imperiled big cats on Earth — only about 354 are believed to remain across the entire region, cut off geographically from other African leopard populations and squeezed by habitat loss and poaching. So a fresh piece of good news is worth paying attention to.

A new study published in Global Ecology and Conservation reports that leopard density in Benin's Pendjari National Park rose over a six-year period, from 2017 to 2023. It's a rare signal of recovery for a subspecies that was officially listed as regionally endangered on the IUCN Red List in 2025, after a 50% decline across two decades.

"It's a win"

"It's a win," said lead author Marine Drouilly, a biologist with the global wild-cat conservation nonprofit Panthera. The research team, working with African Parks and partners on the ground, used camera-trap surveys to estimate how many leopards were quietly moving through the park's dry woodlands and gallery forests at different points during the six-year window.

The results point to a genuine population increase — not just better detection. And the timing lines up with something concrete: management of Pendjari was handed over to the nonprofit African Parks in 2017, in partnership with the government of Benin, and conservation investment has flowed in steadily since.

Why Pendjari matters

West African leopards (Panthera pardus pardus, geographically distinct from their central and southern African cousins) have very few strongholds left. Pendjari is one of them. Others include the Niokolo-Koba–Badiar landscape spanning Senegal and Guinea, the Taï and Comoé National Parks in Côte d'Ivoire, and Ghana's Mole National Park.

The park sits within the wider W-Arly-Pendjari (WAP) Complex, a transboundary conservation landscape encompassing national parks, hunting reserves, and buffer zones across Benin, Burkina Faso, and Niger. It's a rare ecological island in a fast-changing region.

What's working

Camera-trap studies can't tell the whole story of why leopards are rebounding, but the researchers point to several likely ingredients:

  • Active park management. African Parks brought in professional rangers, upgraded patrol infrastructure, and coordinated law enforcement with local partners.
  • Prey protection. Leopards can't recover without something to eat. Curbing bushmeat hunting helps rebuild antelope and other prey populations that leopards depend on.
  • Habitat integrity. Keeping the park itself intact — with its mix of woodland, savanna, and riparian corridors — matters more than any single intervention.

Real threats remain

The news isn't all bright. Pendjari sits inside a region grappling with a serious security crisis, as armed groups operating across the Sahel have infiltrated parts of the WAP Complex. That threatens rangers, researchers, and the long-term stability of any conservation gain.

Continent-wide pressures also persist. West Africa's human population is growing rapidly, fragmenting wildlife habitat. Leopards are still hunted for their spotted skins, canines, and bones to supply illegal wildlife trade routes into Africa and Southeast Asia. In West Africa, demand for small pieces of leopard skin used in traditional talismans adds another quiet pressure.

A signal, not a victory lap

Six years of camera-trap data in one park does not undo a 50% regional decline. But it does something important: it shows that when West African leopards are given a protected place with active management and enough prey, they can and do come back. For a subspecies with 354 individuals left, that kind of proof-of-concept is precious — a road map other range countries can study and try to replicate.

As the authors put it, this is the kind of result that turns "we should keep trying" into "here's what actually worked." For one of Africa's rarest big cats, that shift matters.