Page 101 - BBC Wildlife Volume 36 #12

OURWILDWORLD

Q&A
We solve your

wildlife mysteries.

More amazing facts at
discoverwildlife.com

This month’s panel

STUART BLACKMAN EMMA KENNEDY POLLY PULLAR LAURIE JACKSON RICHARD FOX LIZ KALAUGHER JULES HOWARD SARAH McPHERSON
Science writer Coral reef scientist Naturalist and author Wildlife tour leader Butterfly Conservation Science writer Zoologist and author Q&A editor

BIG CATS

How many

Amur leopards

are let?

The Amur leopard is a
Acontender for the most
threatened of all large carnivores.
Since the 1970s, this Critically
Endangered, small-bodied, thick-
furred subspecies has been limited
to a single population straddling
the border of south-east Russia
and China (north-east of the
Korean Peninsula). In 2010, it was
feared that as few as 25 individuals
remained, but this figure was
based on snow tracks, which is a
fairly rough-and-ready measure.
The latest survey, published in the
journal Conservation Letters and
which utilised hundreds of camera-
traps, provides an estimate of
84 animals. One-third of these were
photographed in both China and
Russia, showing that the leopards
routinely cross the barbed wire
border fence. Stuart Blackman

Vladimir Medvedev/naturepl.com habitat in Russia’s far south-east.
The increase of Amur leopards is
thanks largely to the designation
of the Land of the Leopard
National Park in 2012, which
protects a huge swathe of prime

December 2018 BBC Wildlife 101