From image to inaction: The pitfalls of celebrating rare wildlife sightings in Bangladesh
A single photo of a leopard in the Chittagong Hill Tracts has reignited excitement. But as rare wildlife sightings go viral, Bangladesh continues to ignore the structural failures that make such sightings so rare in the first place
Bangladesh has become increasingly familiar with news about leopards in recent times. In the country's northern regions — where maize fields, sugarcane, and coarse grasslands form a shifting mosaic — leopard sightings occasionally surface. These stories almost always end in the same way: a startled village, a brief moment of fear, a dead animal, and then a return to normal.
Most of these leopards are likely wanderers from India's North Bengal — young ones testing the edges of their territory. A few might attempt to settle in these borderlands, but none thrive. They arrive quietly, die quickly, and leave behind little trace. This pattern has repeated over the past decade, particularly as digital media evolved and began reaching nearly every smart device in the country. Occasionally, leopard cubs have even been rescued from traffickers — brief sparks of attention amid an otherwise grim trend.
But last week was different. A camera trap image from the Sangu-Matamuhuri Reserve Forest in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) went viral — the first concrete evidence of a leopard in the region in over a decade. It was just one image but it triggered a ripple of excitement. Social media lit up. Newsrooms reacted. Conservationists paused. For a moment, we remembered that the leopard — Bangladesh's second-largest wild cat — still walks our forests.
But why does a single photograph feel like such a revelation? It is 2025. Across much of the world — and even in neighbouring India, Nepal, and Bhutan — carnivore science and conservation have grown deeper, sharper, more forward-looking. So why are we still celebrating just a single photo? Why are we still debating whether an animal is a resident or a straggler slipping across an imaginary line on a map?
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Why does mere presence alone stir such strong emotion? As someone who has spent the last eight years working with camera traps, I understand the feeling intimately. Getting the settings right, choosing the right site, and finally capturing an image of a rare species — it is always a moment charged with both relief and adrenaline. It is emotional because the effort is immense, and the result often uncertain. But from a conservation perspective, the truth is harder to face: such moments feel so powerful because the wildlife has become rare. Because the silence of our forests has become more familiar than the movement of the animals that once filled them. Because we have slipped into a dangerous rhythm — one where we celebrate mere survival, without ever questioning how fragile that survival truly is. And I say this not in theory, but from personal experience.
The hills where this latest sighting occurred are changing rapidly. Once cloaked in dense, semi-evergreen forest, the landscape is now dotted with orchards — guava, banana, mango, pineapple — promoted through state-backed projects or private conversions. These plantations are marketed as green, even "eco-friendly." But they are not forests. They do not host native prey, support ecological processes, or provide real shelter for wildlife. What they do offer is fragmentation and degraded habitat. And for wildlife, this means danger.
These orchards are turning into ecological traps. They lure animals out of shrinking forests and closer to people — creating the perfect conditions for conflict. And when conflict comes, it is swift and brutal. Its deadly outcomes are common all over Bangladesh. In the Hill Tracts, human-wildlife conflict is increasingly common.
Earlier this year in Rangamati, a man was reportedly attacked by a leopard in Jurachhari upazila — but no serious effort was made to confirm the species involved or understand the circumstances. Since 2021, at least two leopards have been killed in northern Bangladesh — one beaten by villagers, another electrocuted while trying to access a chicken farm. These are not isolated incidents. They are the predictable outcomes of a landscape pushed past its limits.
Despite this, media interest in leopards and other large mammals surfaces regularly. What's rare is our attention span. The news fades, and we move on.
Compared to the sporadic sightings in the north, the leopard in the Hill Tracts may belong to a relict, breeding population. But one photo cannot confirm that. It offers no answers about how many remain, whether they are isolated, or if they are silently edging toward extinction. In conservation, presence does not mean persistence.
One of the core problems lies in how we treat conservation science in Bangladesh. With the exception of tigers in the Sundarbans, most efforts stop at documentation — as if proof of life equates to safety. Camera traps, field surveys — these are essential tools, but tools are not the goal. They must feed into deeper research: population dynamics, habitat connectivity, genetics, and community engagement. Without this, our databases grow, but our understanding does not.
I remember talking to certain conservation practitioners who dismiss research entirely with smirks and chuckles, "Conservation is always more important than doing research. There is nothing to research in our hill forests." Sadly, we do not have any conservation gains either.
Just as worrying is the siloed culture that surrounds much of our wildlife work. We always cherish dominating specific regions and species, treating sites like proprietary domains. Data is hoarded. Collaboration is avoided. It is a Gollum-like tendency — to protect the "precious," even at the cost of progress. But Bangladesh cannot afford gatekeeping. Its biodiversity crisis is too urgent, too wide-reaching.
There is also a reluctance to name places where rare wildlife is found. Some researchers argue that keeping obscure areas away from public knowledge helps shield them from poachers and tourists. A professor of zoology recently commented on Facebook that "the inaccessibility of the Hill Tracts and ongoing unrest often provide a safe haven for wildlife." But what lasting benefit has conflict ever brought to wildlife in Southeast Asia? We learned a new term though—the empty forest syndrome.
Yes, there's some merit in withholding sensitive details. But excessive secrecy breeds isolation. It denies sites of visibility, reduces accountability, and weakens the case for resources. Simply naming a reserve forest does not endanger wildlife — it can, in fact, bring global attention, funding, and pressure to protect.
There are examples of how a lack of recognition may lead to destruction. In 2017, leopard observations emerged from forests in Cox's Bazar, but they failed to garner the same attention. Since then, the area has undergone drastic transformation due to the Rohingya refugee crisis. While the humanitarian need was undeniable, the forest governance response was inadequate. Thousands of hectares were cleared to make space for camps and infrastructure, with little thought for mitigation or wildlife protection. If leopards still survive there, they cling on by a thread. Yet even now, some conservationists remain indifferent to such impacts.
So, what does this moment—this one photograph—demand of us?
It demands that we stop mistaking headlines for impact. That we must invest in rigorous, objective-based research that goes beyond detection — tracking occupancy, estimating densities, studying habitat quality. That we build systems that harness research and conservation. That we monitor beyond just the landscapes where people and predators already coexist. That we stop promoting monoculture as restoration, and instead invest in native forest regeneration. That we stop excluding local voices — especially Indigenous communities — and begin working with them as co-managers, not passive informants. That we nurture young ecologists who are equally adept in field works and analyses.
That leopard in the hills tells us that something wild still holds on. But for how long? If we do not act — broadly, boldly, and together — we may one day look back and realise that a camera trap recorded not a presence, but an extinction event.
