According to experts from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the critically endangered Amur leopard (Panthera pardus orientalis) – one of ten living subspecies of leopard – has doubled in population since 2007.
The Amur leopard (Panthera pardus orientalis).
The Amur leopard, also known as the Far East leopard, the Manchurian leopard or the Korean leopard, is the rarest and most endangered big cat in the world.
These leopards are adapted to the cool climate by having thick fur which grows up to 7.5 cm long in winter.
Their fur color changes from light yellow in winter to reddish yellow during summer.
The spots, or rosettes, of Amur leopards are more widely spaced and have thicker black borders, making it a very beautiful cat.
They have longer legs than other leopards, allowing them to walk in snow with greater ease. Their tongue has tiny rasps or hooks, called denticles, which are used to scrape the meat off of the bones of their prey.
Males generally weigh between 32 and 48 kg, but can weigh up to 75 kg, and females between 25 and 43 kg. Their body length extends about 1.5 meters.
Amur leopards are solitary animals. Aside from mating and territorial disputes, they rarely interact with one another.
Females first breed at an age of 3-4 years. After a gestation period of twelve weeks, cubs are born in litters of 1-4 individuals, with an average litter size of just over 2. The cubs stay with their mother for up to 2 years before becoming fully independent.
In the wild, leopards live for 10-15 years and they may reach 20 years in captivity.
The distribution of the Amur leopard has been reduced to a fraction of its original range. It once extended throughout northeastern China and throughout the Korean Peninsula. The species range in the Amur River basin was dramatically reduced during the 1970s, losing about 80 percent of its former range.
The primary reasons for the animal’s decline are hunting and loss of habitat. Humans are their main predators – trophy hunters seek to kill the leopards for their beautiful spotted fur coats, while subsistence hunters find the cats a nuisance as they compete for sika deer and other prey.
IUCN’s 2000 Red List of Threatened Species classifies the subspecies as Critically Endangered, and the CITES has listed it on Appendix I.
A new Amur leopard census, carried out by the Land of the Leopard National Park with the support of WWF, has registered an increase from around 30 in 2007 to around 70 adult leopards in the wild.
It was taken with camera traps spread out over more than 900,000 acres of primary leopard habitat, collected approximately 10,000 photographs that scientists used to identify 57 individual animals. Individuals are determined by distinctive patterns of spots found on leopard fur.
Additional 8-12 leopards were counted in China, meaning the number of Amur leopards has more than doubled over the past seven years.
