Amur leopard -- Panthera pardus orientalis

Amur Leopard - Page 1&2: In The Wild | 3&4: In Captivity | 5&6: Subspecies Description |
7: Weight & Length Figures | 8&9: Conservation

Amur leopard status in the wild:

The Amur leopard is critically endangered; this is due to three main factors:

    • habitat destruction
    • reduction in prey
    • trophy hunting and fur poaching

    Various plans are in action to effect the conservation of this big cat.

    Amur leopard Species Survival Plan:

    The Species Survival Plan is concentrating on distributing captive bloodlines among zoos. This is done in a carefully controlled manner so as to reduce the chance of inbreeding.


    Europaeisches Erhaltungszucht Program - EEP:

    This is an organised captive breeding programme which manages the European population of the Amur leopard.

    Russian leopard conservation:

    Russia now has a conservation programme in practice which covers poaching, fire-fighting, monetary compensation for farmers that lose stock to leopard attacks, public education, leopard counts and monitoring of prey animals.


Amur leopard capture:

A number of leopards have now been caught using spring traps and collared. This makes the cat easier to locate and monitor.

Other methods of capture are also being tried.

Mountain lion capture in the United States is carried out using tracker dogs. These chase the mountain lions into a tree and then the cats are immobilised for examination.

A trial of this method was held in March 1996 near Vladivostok. This dog had been used in over 100 captures and its first encounter with an Amur leopard involved an 18 month old juvenile. Though much smaller than an adult mountain lion, the leopard reacted differently. Instead of being treed it attacked the dog, which subsequently died.

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Amur Leopard - Page 1&2: In The Wild | 3&4: In Captivity | 5&6: Subspecies Description |
7: Weight & Length Figures | 8&9: Conservation

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Photography With Thanks To The Feline Conservation Center (Photo 1)
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