Amur Leopards
These beautiful creatures are solitary by nature, and will avoid humans as they do open, exposed areas. Photo courtesy of Colchester Zoo
Ashley Montagu, the British-born anthropologist and humanist, said, "The indifference, callousness and contempt that so many people exhibit toward animals is evil first because it results in great suffering in animals, and second because it results in an incalculably great impoverishment of the human spirit ..."
Ashley Montagu's words may sound abrasive to some, but for those "some" they are undeniably true. Every living creature - human or animal - has the right to live in its natural and social environment without the threat of endangerment or worse extinction. And, what makes that threat so loathsome is that we, as man, have the greater power to prevent and avert it, but we don't.
One such species that is near extinction is the Amur leopard; a leopard that is perhaps the most exquisite of the big cats and among the rarest. They are fearsome territorial loners and primarily creatures of the night. They are lithe, powerful, and the embodiment of grace. Their stance is near perfection, and their agility is remarkable. In one jump, they can cover a distance of 19 feet and a height of over 9 feet. At shoulder height they stand about 24 inches with the male Amur weighing up to 91 kilograms (200 lbs), and the female up to 59 (130lbs). Their orange, black, and ivory-white colouring is more distinctive in the summer, and, during the harsh and bitter winter months, their coats thicken and grow longer (approximately 3 inches) as a means of natural protection.
Females start breeding between 3 and 4 years old, and carry their cubs-to-be for about 3 months. They give birth to one or two cubs, and seem to do so towards the end of spring. Amur cubs are usually 2 years old before leaving their mother's side and asserting their self-reliance. The Amur leopard can survive up to 15 years in their natural environs.
News articles about Amur Leopards
- Red wolves – Noble spirits
- Amur leopard still on the brink of extinction
- An Amur leopard, the world’s rarest big cat, given health check
- Amur leopard, the world’s rarest big cat, still clinging on in Russia
- Dire news as one of only 7 or 8 female Amur leopards is shot dead
- Amur leopards threatened by bureaucracy
- New reserve created for remaining Amur leopards
- China and Russia agree to work together to save the Amur tiger
- Credit crunch increases pressure on Amur tigers & leopards
IF you were able to get a glimpse of the Amur leopard today, it would be in forests of southeast Russia. IF they weren't on the edge of extinction, their natural habitats would also be found in similar regions in the Jilin Province in North-eastern China, and North Korea.
Human persecution
These beautiful creatures are solitary by nature, and will avoid humans as they do open, exposed areas. They are a private species and their survival is tenuous at best. The prospect of a future for them is frightening because we are responsible for casting them into near extinction. We not only hunt and poach them but we also hunt and poach their prey such as the Roe and Sika deer, forcing them to hunt "domestic" deer which leads to more persecution. Poor conservation laws, deforestation for farming purposes - incursion into and exploitation of their natural environments - together with nature's inescapable adversities also contribute to the severity of their precarious situation. All of this affects their reproduction and hence population growth: a wildlife population which today numbers less than 40.
Concerted efforts are underway to prevent poaching and hunting, and to protect their food sources as well as implementing plans to put an end to "trafficking in their body parts" - an abhorrent trade.
Zoos
There are collectively about 300 Amur leopards in European, Russian, and North American zoos.
They are moved among the zoos for breeding purposes and to curtail in-breeding (another factor holding back their survival in the wild). This will, hopefully, help to encourage more genetic diversity and bring about an eventual "reintroduction" into their natural surroundings.
Reintroduction
There is a 2009 Russian initiative, a "reintroduction plan" that was developed to help rebuild their population: one that will be homed - most likely - in the Russian Far East Lazovsky Nature Reserve, a hotspot for Amur leopard sightings.
There is an almost invisible thread that binds our lives with the lives of all creatures. There is an almost silent, too often unspoken, truth that wildlife share in our existence. There is a sometimes forgotten and abandoned reality that holds our lives in concert with nature and her wildlife. That which we turn away from becomes almost invisible becomes almost silent in the distance. That reality which we choose to sometimes forget and abandon gradually dissipates and disrupts the concert that nature shares with us.
Chief Seattle, a Duwamish North American Indian Chief, believed that man is little - if anything - without our wildlife. His belief was that, "If all the beasts were gone, man would die from a great loneliness of the spirit. For whatever happens to the beasts, soon happens to man. All things are connected."
We need to do more, to help more. Time is on our side: it is, however, not on the side of the Amur leopard.
