Amur Leopard

Fascinating facts about the Amur Leopard

• The wild Amur leopard population is now estimated at 128 to 130 sub-adult and adult individuals, a figure given for the 2023 assessment. This tiny number places the subspecies on the IUCN Red List as Critically Endangered, reflecting its extreme risk of extinction. Earlier surveys had shown far fewer leopards, with fewer than 60 individuals estimated in 2015 across Russia and China, highlighting a slow but still precarious recovery.
• In 2007 surveys estimated that only 19 to 26 wild Amur leopards survived in southeastern Russia and northeastern China, underscoring the dire situation at the time. By 2015 the estimate had risen to fewer than 60 individuals in the two countries, showing a modest increase but still indicating a critically low population. These figures illustrate how the subspecies has remained on the brink of extinction for more than a decade.
• Camera-trapping surveys carried out between 2014 and 2015 recorded 92 Amur leopards across an 8,398 km² transboundary zone along the Russian-Chinese border, providing a detailed snapshot of their distribution. This count formed part of the data that, together with later observations, led to the 2023 estimate of 128-130 sub-adult and adult individuals.
• The Amur leopard's flank rosettes are about 5 cm by 5 cm and are set far apart, each surrounded by a thick, unbroken ring that can be up to 2.5 cm wide. These distinctive markings help differentiate it from other leopard subspecies. Its winter coat becomes especially dense, with back hair reaching lengths of up to 70 mm, far longer than the 20-25 mm seen in summer. This thick fur provides essential insulation against the harsh cold of its Siberian range.
• Amur leopards are known to move across the Tumen River, linking populations in Russia, China and possibly North Korea, even though a high, long wire fence runs along the border. Their movements are largely restricted to areas where wild sika deer occur, as these forests provide their primary prey.

Sources

Every fact above was checked against these pages, and kept only where one of them states it.

• Wikipedia

At a glance

About the Amur Leopard

In the mist-shrouded forests of the Russian Far East, the Amur leopard stalks its prey with a ghostly silence, its tawny coat blending seamlessly into the dappled underbrush as it pads through the trees with a fluid, muscular grace. With eyes that burn like embers in the dark, this majestic creature navigates its dwindling domain with a fierce and quiet determination, its very existence a testament to the enduring power of wildness in a world that seems determined to extinguish it. As it moves, the trees seem to lean in, as if to whisper secrets to this phantom of the forest, a creature of haunting beauty and tragic rarity.

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