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Arabian Leopard Conservation Program of Saudi Arabia’s RCU Welcomes Birth of Rare Triplets

The triplets were born at the RCU’s Arabian Leopard Conservation Breeding Center this summer. SPA
The triplets were born at the RCU’s Arabian Leopard Conservation Breeding Center this summer. SPA
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Arabian Leopard Conservation Program of Saudi Arabia’s RCU Welcomes Birth of Rare Triplets

The triplets were born at the RCU’s Arabian Leopard Conservation Breeding Center this summer. SPA
The triplets were born at the RCU’s Arabian Leopard Conservation Breeding Center this summer. SPA

Saudi Arabia’s Royal Commission for AlUla (RCU) has announced the birth of a rare litter of three Arabian leopard cubs—two males and one female—marking a major milestone in efforts to safeguard the future of this critically endangered subspecies of big cats.

According to an RCU statement, the triplets were born at the RCU’s Arabian Leopard Conservation Breeding Center this summer. This is the first time three cubs have been born together in captivity in the Kingdom. The youngsters are being closely observed by the center's expert team, who are recording their behavior and interactions.

Carefully observed via CCTV so as not to disturb them, the new cubs are already displaying distinctive personalities, with the two males proving to be particularly boisterous, climbing rocks in their enclosure and play fighting with each other. The female, on the other hand, is much shyer and more attached to her mother, according to the statement.

The triplets’ parents are a father named Baher and a 6-year-old mother called Ward. Baher, aged approximately 13, is one of two leopards known as Founders, who were brought to the conservation breeding center as part of a regional exchange program to add to the genetic diversity of the population, founding a new bloodline, and thereby increasing the viability of the breeding program. Baher arrived in December 2023.

The RCU added that while records from past decades are imperfect, the cubs are believed to be only the third litter of Arabian leopard triplets born in captivity in roughly the past 30 years, and the first in Saudi Arabia. Currently, the Arabian Leopard Conservation Breeding Center is the world’s most successful site for the conservation breeding of Arabian leopards.

The project’s long-term goal is the reintroduction of this iconic big cat into the wild in AlUla. Vital to this is the restoration and rehabilitation of the RCU’s six nature reserves, which are actively contributing to the Saudi Green Initiative’s national commitment to protect 30% of terrestrial and marine areas.

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Australia Sweats Through Hottest 12 Months on Record

Australia has just sweltered through its hottest 12 months on record, a period of drenching floods, tropical cyclones and mass coral bleaching. DAVID GRAY / AFP/File
Australia has just sweltered through its hottest 12 months on record, a period of drenching floods, tropical cyclones and mass coral bleaching. DAVID GRAY / AFP/File
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Australia Sweats Through Hottest 12 Months on Record

Australia has just sweltered through its hottest 12 months on record, a period of drenching floods, tropical cyclones and mass coral bleaching. DAVID GRAY / AFP/File
Australia has just sweltered through its hottest 12 months on record, a period of drenching floods, tropical cyclones and mass coral bleaching. DAVID GRAY / AFP/File

Australia has just sweltered through its hottest 12 months on record, a weather official said Thursday, a period of drenching floods, tropical cyclones and mass coral bleaching.

Senior government climatologist Simon Grainger said the rolling 12-month period between April 2024 and March 2025 was 1.61 degrees Celsius (34.9 degrees Fahrenheit) above average -- the hottest since records began more than a century ago.

"This is certainly part of a sustained global pattern," he told AFP.

"We've been seeing temperatures since about April 2023 that were globally much warmer than anything we have seen in the global historical record."

The previous hottest period was in 2019, Grainger said, when temperatures were 1.51 degrees Celsius above average.

"That is a pretty significant difference," Grainger said.

"It's well above what we would expect just from uncertainties due to rounding. The difference is much larger than that."

The record was measured on a rolling 12-month basis -- rather than as a calendar year.

Australia has also recorded its hottest-ever March, Grainger said, with temperatures more than two degrees above what would normally be seen.

"There has basically been sustained warmth through pretty much all of Australia," he said.

"We saw a lot of heatwave conditions, particularly in Western Australia. And we didn't really see many periods of cool weather -- we didn't see many cold fronts come through."

Sickly white coral

From the arid outback to the tropical coast, swaths of Australia have been pummeled by wild weather in recent months.

Unusually warm waters in the Coral Sea stoked a tropical cyclone that pummeled densely populated seaside hamlets on the country's eastern coast in March.

Whole herds of cattle have drowned in vast inland floods still flowing across outback Queensland.

And a celebrated coral reef off Western Australia has turned a sickly shade of white as hotter seas fuel an unfolding mass bleaching event.

The average sea surface temperature around Australia was the "highest on record" in 2024, according to a recent study by Australian National University.

This record run looked to have continued throughout January and February, said Grainger.

"We haven't seen much cooling in sea surface temperatures."

Moisture collects in the atmosphere as oceans evaporate in hotter temperatures -- eventually leading to more intense downpours and storms.

Australia follows a slew of heat records that have been toppling across the planet.

Six major international datasets confirmed that 2024 was the hottest year on record.

Scientists are unanimous that burning fossil fuels has largely driven long-term global warming.

Australia sits on bulging deposits of coal, gas, metals and minerals, with mining and fossil fuels stoking decades of near-unbroken economic growth.

But it is increasingly suffering from more intense heatwaves, bushfires and drought, which scientists have linked to climate change.