The zoos manage small populations of endangered big cat species like tiger, lion, and leopard for display, research, and conservation breeding. Genetic management of these populations is essential to ensure long term survival and conservation utility. Here we propose a simple and cost effective microsatellite based protocol for the genetic management of captive big cats. We sampled 36 big cat individuals from Seoul Grand Park Zoo (Republic of Korea) and amplified 33 published microsatellite loci. Overall, allelic richness and gene diversity was found highest for leopards, followed by lions and tigers.

There is an urgent need to find a way to improve the genetic diversity of captive South China tiger (SCT, Panthera tigris amoyensis), the most critically endangered taxon of living tigers, facing inbreeding depression. A large-scale genetic survey based on 319 pureblood SCTs showed that the mean microsatellite inbreeding coefficient of pureblood SCTs decreased significantly from 0.1789 to 0.0600 (p = 0.000009) and the ratio of heterozygous loci increased significantly from 38.5% to 43.2% (p = 0.02) after one individual of the Chongqing line joined the Suzhou line and began to breed in the mid-1980s.

Strikingly, we found that the genomic diversity in the African leopard is 2- to 5-fold higher than in other big cats, including the Amur leopard, likely because of an exceptionally high effective population size maintained by the African leopard throughout the Pleistocene.

Big cats (Genus: Panthera) are among the most threatened mammal groups of the world, owing to hunting, habitat loss, and illegal transnational trade. Conservation genetic studies and effective curbs on poaching are important for the conservation of these charismatic apex predators. A limited number of microsatellite markers exists for Panthera species and researchers often cross-amplify domestic cat microsatellites to study these species.

Conservation Genome Resource Bank for Korean Wildlife (CGRB; www.cgrb.org) was established in 2002 at the College of Veterinary Medicine, Seoul National University. CGRB operates in collaboration with Seoul Grand Park Zoo managed by Seoul Metropolitan Government, and has offices and laboratories at both Seoul National University and Seoul Grand Park, where duplicate samples are maintained, thereby assuring a long-term, safe preservation of the samples.

This study is a pioneering attempt to synthesise genome wide microsatellite markers for big cats. For example, microsatellites with F ST can detect the genetic mismatch of subpopulations and measure and characterize different populations' genetic diversity (Hyun et al., 2021; Wright, 1978).

Professor Puneet Pandey and Professor Hang Lee, along with collaborators, developed 'PanPlex,' a system of 32 polymorphic microsatellite markers designed by analyzing the whole genome DNA of four big cat species (tiger, lion, leopard, and snow leopard). This system aims to provide a unified marker system for genetic monitoring of Asian big cat species, addressing the issue of incompatible genetic datasets from different research groups.

This chapter analyzes the efforts of Seoul Grand Park Zoo—the largest and most important zoo on the Korean peninsula—to develop and achieve the highest standards in conservation, education, animal welfare, and research over the last three decades. Founded primarily as an entertainment venue in 1984, the zoo has struggled to become a scientific center that adequately provides for the animals under its care and promotes the advancement and dissemination of knowledge.

When observing the species' genetic diversity, researchers found the genetic diversity of tiger and lion were similar to that of human. Interestingly, the diversity of snow leopard genome was nearly half that of the other Panthera species and slightly lower than that of the Tasmanian devil.

Here, we report the development of novel microsatellite markers for genus Panthera by mining the genome sequences of four (tiger, leopard, lion, and snow leopard) most exploited big cat species. This study is a part of an ongoing India-Korea-Russia collaborative initiative to develop and test microsatellite based multiplex PCR panels of the pantherine species for genetic.