Five leopard cats were found breeding in Changi forest before Terminal 5 changed their future

For months, the forest around Changi was being watched after dark. More than 50 volunteers, working with conservation groups and Singapore’s National Parks Board, set up cameras, collected evidence and searched for signs of one of the country’s most elusive wild cats. What they found was more significant than a handful of fleeting sightings. By the time the survey ended in April 2026, five leopard cats had been identified, including cubs; evidence that the animals were breeding in the forest.But the discovery comes at a difficult moment. The landscape around Changi is changing as construction of the new Terminal 5 and planned coastal reclamation reshape parts of the habitat. For the cats, finding them was only the beginning. Now, conservationists face the harder task of moving them to places where they can continue to hunt, roam and reproduce without being squeezed out by development.How a volunteer survey revealed a breeding population of leopard cats in ChangiThe Changi population had been known about for several years, although its size and behaviour were less clear. The first confirmed evidence came in January 2019, when a leopard cat was killed in a road accident. The animals ...