A sliver of forest adjacent to the Kinabatangan river. Such narrow  strips of riparian forest may act as corridors for threatened  species such as Bornean felids, and provide essential linkages  for otherwise fragmented blocks of forest

The female clouded leopards were snapped close to the banks of Danau Tongog, a beautiful oxbow lake to the west of our study area. Both individuals were photographed approximately 1 km apart, walking along a well-worn forest trail that encircles the lake, which is frequently used by staff and tourists of the nearby community-run tourist facility, the Tongog Ecocamp. These photo-captures lend further support to our theory that existing trails, even those regularly frequented by people, are one of the best locations to detect Sunda clouded leopards with camera traps.

One of these females, CLF1, was also photographed moving through a relatively narrow band (ca. 100 m wide) of riparian forest in Lot 5, which is sandwiched between the river and the surrounding oil palm plantations. This location is close to where we previously observed a flat-headed cat whilst spotlighting (detailed in Hearn et al 2010), and thus provides some of the first evidence that such riparian  forest buffers may be utilised by Bornean felids, and may thus provide essential connectivity between otherwise isolated forest fragments along the Kinabatangan.  The potential role of forest corridors as a tool for Bornean carnivore conservation is something that we aim to explore further during our new project, the Kinabatangan Carnivore Programme.