{"id":69436,"date":"2025-02-11T16:00:12","date_gmt":"2025-02-11T07:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/environment\/2025\/feb\/11\/leopard-killings-pakistan-conservationists"},"modified":"2025-02-11T16:00:12","modified_gmt":"2025-02-11T07:00:12","slug":"shot-poisoned-and-beaten-to-death-why-leopard-killings-are-soaring-in-pakistan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=69436","title":{"rendered":"Shot, poisoned and beaten to death: why leopard killings are soaring in Pakistan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A wave of incidents threatens the survival of the species in the country, say conservationists<\/p>\n<p>Inside the Pakistan Museum of Natural History, in Islamabad, two taxidermists work on a leopard skin. They scrape away at the remaining flesh and sprinkle the underside with boric acid powder. It\u2019s difficult to look away from the two holes where the leopard\u2019s eyes should be.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe ask conservation groups, if they find any dead specimen, to relay it to us so that we can preserve it and make it available to young researchers,\u201d says Muhammad Asif Khan, the museum\u2019s director of zoological science. \u201cThis particular leopard died from gunshot wounds in the Azad Jammu and Kashmir region,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<p>Clockwise from main image: taxidermists at the Pakistan Natural History Museum work on a leopard specimen that was shot in the Azad Jammu and Kashmir region; Asif Khan holds a piece of shot; a bullet hole or shot wound can be seen in the pelt<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/environment\/2025\/feb\/11\/leopard-killings-pakistan-conservationists\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A wave of incidents threatens the survival of the species in the country, say conservationistsInside the Pakistan Museum of Natural History, in Islamabad, two taxidermists work on a leopard skin. They scrape away at the remaining flesh and sprinkle the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4610,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[265,456,464,65,60,61,94,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-69436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-animals","category-conservation","category-endangered-species","category-environment","category-pakistan","category-south-and-central-asia","category-wildlife","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4610"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=69436"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69436\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":69437,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69436\/revisions\/69437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=69436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=69436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=69436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}