DUBAI Critically endangered Arabian leopards are being hunted down by farmers in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to protect their livestock, a wildlife official said in comments published Sunday.

There are fewer than 100 Arabian leopards left in the wild in the UAE, Saif al-Ghais, head of the country's wildlife authority, told the ***Gulf News****.

"UAE national herdsmen see the leopards as a threat to their livelihood and have been hunting them down indiscriminately ... because they lack understanding of wildlife," he said.

"Urgent measures are needed to protect them."

Ghais said leopards were increasingly attacking cattle belonging to farmers because their natural prey such as wild mountains goats and gazelles are also virtually extinct.

Killings by hunters in the early 1990s led to conservation efforts centered on breeding in captivity and preserving the mountain habitat of the Arabian leopard.

The leopard, which lives in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman and the UAE, is not an animal of the open desert, but ranges through the mountains where water sources are more plentiful.

A solitary animal, Panthera Pardus Nimr is smaller than most African and Asian breeds, and bears the deep golden yellow fur only on its back. The rest of the body is beige to greyish-white, blending in with the landscape, AFP reported.