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Leopard - Panthera pardus
Topic Started: Jan 7 2012, 08:52 PM (43,042 Views)
Dexterous
Autotrophic Organism
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Kurtz
Jun 2 2012, 08:02 PM
Dexterous,
try to find some book of Pof. Bernhard Grzimek like "Serengeti Shall Not Die" or some source of Jonathan Scott and Angela Scott.
Without buy some book i'll see hard find on intenret source.
But they seem big leopards

Kurtz
Thanks Kurtz :D

Hm.. yes, there appears to be no data available on the internet which I find surprising since
there were many studies on all large carnivores in the area..
I'll try to look up Grimek's books

Yes.. they seem Kruger-sized
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Dexterous
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Leopard weights in Kenya

Source: Hamilton – Leopard and cheetah in Kenya

General weight for adult leopards is 30-95kg. Highland animals are much larger, weighing 60-95kg (43-126% more than in the bushlands of Tsavo NP), but no data on individual weight is given.
Weight range for adults in Tsavo NP is 30-50kg, with the average weight of five animals being 37kg (29-42kg), but the paper does not precise whether those were male or female..
Weight of ten animals from Meru/Laikipia districts:
Males 55.5kg (40kg, 46kg, 51kg, 53kg, 62kg, 64kg, 73kg)
Females 40kg (33kg, 43kg, 44kg)
The dimorphism seems smaller than in southern Africa, and evidently specimens from mountain ranges are much larger than those from the lowlands. This coincides with the data on leopards from India (Source: Fauna of British India and Ceylon) where two forms are described – a smaller one which lives in the vicinity of villages and the larger one which inhabits deep jungles.
Such a variation in size over a relatively small geographical area is really noteworthy and yet another proof of this animal's amazing adaptivity to various habitat types.
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chui
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Dexterous
May 28 2012, 02:00 AM
Btw... any info on the weight of leopards from Serengeti/Masai Mara??
The Serengeti ecosystem is a healthy prey rich environment where leopards are of decent size similar to those from the Kruger region of South Africa. Also note that most of the Serengeti is actually woodland savanna and not open plains so it provides plenty of cover for leopards.

Here’s all data on the weights of leopards from this region I’m aware of.

6 females averaged 32kg - weighed by Bertram in the Serengeti NP. From “Lion and leopard immobilization using CI-744” 1976.

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12 males averaged 62kg - weighed by professional hunter, Sanchez-Arino in the Loliondo GR which is adjacent to the Serengeti NP and part of the broader Serengeti ecosystem. Excerpt is from Tony Almeida’s book, “Jaguar Hunting in the Matto Grasso” 1993.

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5 males averaged 62.3kg - weighed by the naturalist, Richard Meinertzhagen in the Serengeti and the Athi Plains. Excerpt originally from boldchamp.

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Meinertzhagen is widely considered a reliable source but his weights for female leopards seem unusually high. It’s possible that one or both of those 129lb leopards were mislabeled as females and were actually males.

Some big males from the Masai Mara/Serengeti.

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Kurtz
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Welcome back Chui!
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Dexterous
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chui
Jun 13 2012, 09:43 PM
Dexterous
May 28 2012, 02:00 AM
Btw... any info on the weight of leopards from Serengeti/Masai Mara??
The Serengeti ecosystem is a healthy prey rich environment where leopards are of decent size similar to those from the Kruger region of South Africa. Also note that most of the Serengeti is actually woodland savanna and not open plains so it provides plenty of cover for leopards.

Here’s all data on the weights of leopards from this region I’m aware of.

6 females averaged 32kg - weighed by Bertram in the Serengeti NP. From “Lion and leopard immobilization using CI-744” 1976.

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12 males averaged 62kg - weighed by professional hunter, Sanchez-Arino in the Loliondo GR which is adjacent to the Serengeti NP and part of the broader Serengeti ecosystem. Excerpt is from Tony Almeida’s book, “Jaguar Hunting in the Matto Grasso” 1993.

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5 males averaged 62.3kg - weighed by the naturalist, Richard Meinertzhagen in the Serengeti and the Athi Plains. Excerpt originally from boldchamp.

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Meinertzhagen is widely considered a reliable source but his weights for female leopards seem unusually high. It’s possible that one or both of those 129lb leopards were mislabeled as females and were actually males.

Some big males from the Masai Mara/Serengeti.

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Tnx Chui :)

But 58kg (129lb) is the largest recorded weight for any female leopard, and it comes from Kenya.

www.biggame.org/publications/GameTrails_Leopard.pdf

It probably originates (IMO) from the Aberdares or some other mountain area where leopards reach greater size than in the savanna.

Most websites about wildlife in Kenya or Tanzania give weights of 28-58kg for females and 35-65kg for males - only an 8kg difference
at top weights???? ^o) I considered that to be a classical ''copy and paste'' mistake that just goes on and on...

However, the data on dimorphism does seem to vary to a great extent and sometimes even seems a bit absurd...
In Zambia females 34kg, males only 49kg, but in Zimbabwe females 31kg, males 59kg...
Both countries are mainly covered in miombo woodland with similar prey populations.

I was wondering what exactly implicates the degree of dimorphism in leopards? The males are without a doubt much larger but
some photos posted on the forum show really extreme size difference between the sexes..


And yes, the chances that out of three adult females two weighed 58kg seems a bit.. well.. unreal :D

Edited by Dexterous, Jun 14 2012, 12:38 AM.
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chui
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One reason for the big differences in the level of sexual dimorphism between samples may be due to different ways of classifying adults. Some sources will identify a leopard as young as 2 years old as adult while others may only consider animals above 4 years as adult. Since male big cats continue to grow much later into life than females the minimum age of the animals included in a sample will no doubt influence the level of dimorphism that sample yields. Moreover, in some of the older data from early naturalists and hunters it isn’t even specified that the animals are adult it simply says male and female so they could have included subadults.

This isn’t so much an issue with skull measurements since skulls first of all can be aged more accurately and also because the skulls of young adults are often differentiated from those of full adults. Furthermore skull measurements for leopards are available in greater abundance and cover much more of the species range than data on weights. Based on the available skull measurements there’s no doubt that leopards are highly dimorphic more so than any other feline species as far as I’m aware. Adult male skulls from most regions (East Africa, Southern Africa, India, Sri Lanka etc.) are around 20-25% larger than adult female skulls. Only African lions, the most dimorphic tiger subspecies (Siberian and Bengal), and Diard’s clouded leopards show similar dimorphism. However, the most extreme sexual dimorphism seems to be in the central African forest leopards where male skulls are over 30% larger than female skulls. I’ve also recently seen camera trap photos of several different adult leopards from the region and the difference between males and females is very striking, the males easily seem twice the weight based on build alone. The reason for the particularly extreme dimorphism in these forest leopards probably has to do with prey selection, with males specializing in tough prey like red river hogs while females prey on the much smaller duikers.

Here’s the only age specific morphological data for leopards I know of from this paper http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0035209. Here we can see that by the time males are full grown at 7 years and above they are nearly twice the weight of females. I would expect the same for leopards in other regions like East Africa, India, and Sri Lanka and an even greater difference for the leopards of the Congo Basin forest.

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Welcome back Chui , your return is very good news , all your datas and knowledge were missing to the forum .
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chui
Jun 14 2012, 06:28 AM
One reason for the big differences in the level of sexual dimorphism between samples may be due to different ways of classifying adults. Some sources will identify a leopard as young as 2 years old as adult while others may only consider animals above 4 years as adult. Since male big cats continue to grow much later into life than females the minimum age of the animals included in a sample will no doubt influence the level of dimorphism that sample yields. Moreover, in some of the older data from early naturalists and hunters it isn’t even specified that the animals are adult it simply says male and female so they could have included subadults.

This isn’t so much an issue with skull measurements since skulls first of all can be aged more accurately and also because the skulls of young adults are often differentiated from those of full adults. Furthermore skull measurements for leopards are available in greater abundance and cover much more of the species range than data on weights. Based on the available skull measurements there’s no doubt that leopards are highly dimorphic more so than any other feline species as far as I’m aware. Adult male skulls from most regions (East Africa, Southern Africa, India, Sri Lanka etc.) are around 20-25% larger than adult female skulls. Only African lions, the most dimorphic tiger subspecies (Siberian and Bengal), and Diard’s clouded leopards show similar dimorphism. However, the most extreme sexual dimorphism seems to be in the central African forest leopards where male skulls are over 30% larger than female skulls. I’ve also recently seen camera trap photos of several different adult leopards from the region and the difference between males and females is very striking, the males easily seem twice the weight based on build alone. The reason for the particularly extreme dimorphism in these forest leopards probably has to do with prey selection, with males specializing in tough prey like red river hogs while females prey on the much smaller duikers.

Here’s the only age specific morphological data for leopards I know of from this paper http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0035209. Here we can see that by the time males are full grown at 7 years and above they are nearly twice the weight of females. I would expect the same for leopards in other regions like East Africa, India, and Sri Lanka and an even greater difference for the leopards of the Congo Basin forest.

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You're right , and plus the fact that most older studies suffer from a low sample size, it is easy to see why figures sometimes seem a bit misleading.
It could also be due to a difference in measurement techniques or some other parameters... ^o)
A skull size is definitely a good indicator when it comes to felids, especially pantherines. There were some pictures available I think in the old forum
of two rainforest leopards, male and female, where the male looked more like a jaguar. The difference was so sharp that the two almost seemed
like seperate species.

I agree that in the rainforests dimorphism is probably more related to prey size, since medium-sized ungulates are a few,
and most prey is either small or large or dangerous (for instance bongo), making it possible for the sexes to loosen competition
for a same food source. But imo that is not the case in woodland savanna. Males are surely capable of tackling more challenging
prey such as warthogs or kudus, but both sexes prey predominantly on impala. The reason for that may lay in
a fact that impala is by far the most abundant ungulate in the wooded savanna and the same applies for the spotted deer in India.
Generally speaking maybe the dimorphism rate has more to do with intraspecific conflict between males, as it probably does
at least partly in most other felids, making it possible for larger and stronger males to obtain better territories. Why is this
most pronounced in leopards I don't know.. ^o)

Anywayz... the table you posted really made my day :D , and again some data amazed me...
A body length of only 126cm with a weight of 66kg is really an impressive figure, considering the fact that for instance a
male cheetah with a body length of 125cm weighs only 45.6kg. Likewise an individual male eurasian lynx at 127cm (including tail)
weighs 26kg, but a female leopard of similar body length (105cm) weighs 10kg more. It seems that despite being much more
lithe they are still strongly and compactly built. But adult males imo shame any carnivore in their weight range ;D !

By comparing the data from other sources we can also see that the average dimorphism is 40-50% for adults which is
in synergy with some other studies such as those from Sri Lanka (29kg, 56kg) and Zimbabwe (31kg, 59kg).

Hopefully an info on size and weight of leopards from African rainforests will be available in the future.





Edited by Dexterous, Jun 15 2012, 01:03 AM.
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Kurtz
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chui
Jun 14 2012, 06:28 AM
One reason for the big differences in the level of sexual dimorphism between samples may be due to different ways of classifying adults. Some sources will identify a leopard as young as 2 years old as adult while others may only consider animals above 4 years as adult. Since male big cats continue to grow much later into life than females the minimum age of the animals included in a sample will no doubt influence the level of dimorphism that sample yields. Moreover, in some of the older data from early naturalists and hunters it isn’t even specified that the animals are adult it simply says male and female so they could have included subadults.

This isn’t so much an issue with skull measurements since skulls first of all can be aged more accurately and also because the skulls of young adults are often differentiated from those of full adults. Furthermore skull measurements for leopards are available in greater abundance and cover much more of the species range than data on weights. Based on the available skull measurements there’s no doubt that leopards are highly dimorphic more so than any other feline species as far as I’m aware. Adult male skulls from most regions (East Africa, Southern Africa, India, Sri Lanka etc.) are around 20-25% larger than adult female skulls. Only African lions, the most dimorphic tiger subspecies (Siberian and Bengal), and Diard’s clouded leopards show similar dimorphism. However, the most extreme sexual dimorphism seems to be in the central African forest leopards where male skulls are over 30% larger than female skulls. I’ve also recently seen camera trap photos of several different adult leopards from the region and the difference between males and females is very striking, the males easily seem twice the weight based on build alone. The reason for the particularly extreme dimorphism in these forest leopards probably has to do with prey selection, with males specializing in tough prey like red river hogs while females prey on the much smaller duikers.


Here’s the only age specific morphological data for leopards I know of from this paper http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0035209. Here we can see that by the time males are full grown at 7 years and above they are nearly twice the weight of females. I would expect the same for leopards in other regions like East Africa, India, and Sri Lanka and an even greater difference for the leopards of the Congo Basin forest.

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Great post Chui.
The age/size of male leopards is a complex factor
Btwn, was the 75 kilos male Menzi male?
Edited by Kurtz, Jun 22 2012, 03:26 AM.
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Infanticide in Leopards -

The Cub Killer Strikes at Mombo

12 Jun 2012
Sighting: Cub Killer
Location: Mombo Camp, Chief's Island, Botswana
Date: 12 June 2012
Observers: Ryan Green
Photographs: Ryan Green

At the end of last month, Mombo guides found Legadema at the Broken Baobab. This enormous tree has a large hollow at its centre, which is one of her favourite hiding places. As they watched her climb into the hollow, the telltale sound of tiny cubs mewling emanated from within.

A few days later, we tracked Legadema over an afternoon, hunting in the middle of the day, until she unexpectedly led us to her new den site on Limpy's Island. Perhaps the constant passage of hyaena and baboon past the Broken Baobab had prompted this move, and she had chosen a new place of safety for her little ones. The new den site was deep below a dense woolly caper bush, in an open, grassy plain, and as we approached, we could once again hear the mewling of at least two cubs. We then left the area, to give her the peace she needed.

Two days later, we had an amazing sighting with her in the forest close by, as she defended her kill from three young male lions from the Mporota Pride, and we were sure that night she would return to her den to suckle.

The following morning, we found her once again in the forest of Limpy's, but behaving strangely - moving around and scent marking, close to the caper bush.

The reason for this became apparent when we sighted the Serondela male leopard on the prowl. She was obviously attempting to distract him from his intentions, which were soon to become apparent. The male disappeared south into the forest, while Legadema continued west, still trying to draw as much attention to herself as possible.

While the other guides remained with Legadema, I went in search of the male. I found him deep in a thickly-vegetated corner of Limpy's, at the base of a large ebony tree. He jumped up into the tree and disappeared for a moment, before emerging again with a mewling leopard cub in his mouth.

He moved deep into a fever berry thicket before lying down and playing with the cub in an almost intimate, affectionate fashion - it was a very strange moment, an encounter with a side of nature not many people have witnessed - what appeared to be a gentle, tender encounter, was in fact far more sinister than that it appeared. This went on for about half an hour, before the male's attentions appeared far too intense, his licking far too rough, his eyes darting around the watching, silent forest - and then I realised that he was eating the cub!

This was an incredibly intense thing to watch; to be a dispassionate observer of a behaviour that few have seen - the urge to intervene crossed my mind, but the futility of such actions and our own anthropocentric, sentimental views of nature quickly made me take up my camera and just document what I was seeing and let nature take its course.

After a few minutes that seemed to go on forever, the leopard got up and moved away, prowling around, looking perhaps, for the other cub. I got out of the vehicle and looked at the spot where he had been - not a trace of what had recently happened remained - not a drop of blood, a wisp of fur, nothing.

The leopard, who has now been named Mmolai (killer) then, disappeared in to the forest once more, and I left the area.

A few hours later, another guide told me he had seen Legadema a considerable distance away from the scene, carrying a cub, removing it from danger. The future of this little one remains bleak with Mmolai on the scene, as he will kill any cubs he encounters in his newly acquired territory, but we remain in hope.


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From here : http://www.wilderness-safaris.com/news/unusual_sightings_detail.jsp?newsItem=31669
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The paper Leopard food habits in the Lope NP, Gabon, Central Africa
http://www.panthera.org/sites/default/files/Henschel_et_al_2005_Leopard_food_habits_in_the_Lope_NP.pdf

Relevant / interesting extracts on Leopard predation on apes / young Forest Buffalo and Leopard cannibalism. I.M.O very interesting Leopards eat other Leopards killed, unlike a lot of other cats. :

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Edited by Canidae, Aug 12 2012, 07:43 AM.
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Leopard Weights:
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From "Wild Cats of the World".
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Large territorial males leopard interact with spotted Hyena:
The full story:

Tugwaan Male Steals Kill and Evades Hyena

by Lucien Beaumont on September 11, 2012

in Guest's Footage,Leopards of Londolozi,Wildlife Diary


James Siwela and I came across fresh male leopard pug marks in the soft dust alongside a dry river bed. We slowly followed the tracks down the road and soon heard the rasping call of a leopard a short distance from us. We rushed back to the vehicle and excitedly explained to the guests that the leopard that we were following was only a short distance from us and that we should find it shortly. Back in the vehicle we carried on down the road and found what we had been looking for. Casually walking down the road was the Tugwaan male calling and scent marking on his northern territorial boundry.


The Tugwaan Male Leopard approaches the stolen carcass, clearly with the intent to take it from the hyena.

Five minutes after finding the leopard we heard a warthog distress call in the distance. The leopard pricked his ears forward in interest and suddenly darted down the road towards the noise. In a flash of rosettes he sprinted towards the thicket line with us on his tail trying to see what he was charging towards. To our amazement we saw a hyena beginning to feed on a large warthog sow. The leopard rushed in without a thought, chased off the hyena and grabbed hold of the warthogs throat to begin dragging it down towards a large ravine about 100 metres away.

As the Tugwaan male had the carcass in his jaws the hyena made several attempts to steal back his meal. I have never seen such bravado from a leopard as every time the hyena made a lunge for the kill, the leopard would charge towards the hyena fangs flashing and the most guttural growl, and then sprint back to his kill, standing over in snarling with pure aggression and strength. While all of this was happening, the Maxabeni female appeared and began to follow the procession. We worked out that she must have made the kill and the hyena robbed her only to lose it to the tugwaan male!


The Maxabeni Female Leopard after losing her warthog to a hyena.

The Tugwaan male picked up his won quarry and made for the thicket line passing through a small ravine. As he passed through the ravine he scared a bushbuck ewe out of a thicket. Little did we know what was about to happen next! The hyena followed through the ravine and came across the bushbucks tiny lamb hiding in a thicket. The hyena snatched it up in its jaws and tore off through the bush with the tiny animal.


In an attempt to avert the kill being stolen back, the Tugwaan male drags the stolen warthog to a nearby tree.


The Tugwaan Male chased the hyena away from kill in a burst of speed and aggression.

The Tugwaan male eventually made it to the base of a large weeping boer bean tree and pulled the carcass of the warthog in to the shade of the large tree. He was absolutely exhausted from the whole event to he lay up in the shade straddling the carcass and attempting to catch his breath. No more the five minutes later we saw in the distance the familiar lope of the spotted hyena with a slightly larger belly. The hyena sniffed the air and yet again picked up the scent of the leopard and the carcass and rushed in trying to steal back the meat.


Just before reaching the tree, he stops to feed and see the hyena approaching.

The Tugwaan male was having none of it and grabbed the carcass once more and dashed up the tree only to fall out. Again the hyena rushed in and again the leopard attemped to hoist the kill, only to fall out of the tree. The third attempt from the hyena saw the Tugwaan male give up on hoisting and decided to charge after the hyena, sending him scuttling off into the bush. The leoard had finally got his message across and lay up in the shade resting and feeding for the better part of the day.
http://blog.londolozi.com/2012/09/tugwaan-male-steals-kill-and-evades-hyena/
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Edited by Kurtz, Sep 11 2012, 09:13 PM.
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Amur Leopard: The Cat That Should Have Died

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© RIA Novosti.
14:54 18/09/2012
BARABASH/MOSCOW, September 18 (Alexey Eremenko, RIA Novosti)


It all began when then-Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov saw a movie about leopards.
“We’d be nowhere without him,” said Yury Darman of World Wildlife Fund Russia, who spent a decade trying to save the Amur leopard, the rarest of leopard subspecies.
“It’s really about Ivanov, not the leopard,” Darman said. “The leopard was here forever, but then Ivanov came along.”
The educational film, Save Each of the Survivors!, which Ivanov saw in 2010, prompted the man once tipped to be President Vladimir Putin’s successor to lobby for the creation of the world’s only nature reserve for the near-extinct big cat.
Now the leopards, which reside in a less than ideal location for an endangered species to live in, have a shot at surviving, ecologists say.
But they still face plenty of dangers, including wildfires, hungry tigers, a shrinking gene pool and marines with hunting rifles.
Also threatening their survival are things that big cats usually do not have to deal with, like rural poverty, the state of Russian exports and even the shortcomings of the country’s youth policy.
At least there were 13 leopard cubs born last year, up from zero in 2001, Darman said.

The Last of the Leopards

“In theory, the Amur leopard should have died out a decade ago,” said Sergei Khokhryakov, deputy director of the Land of the Leopard national park which is home to the last 40 to 50 Amur leopards. “There is some factor we underestimate or don’t understand about it.”
The far eastern leopard, one of nine subspecies of Panthera pardus across the globe, once ranged as far as Beijing in the west and the coast of the Sea of Japan in the east, as well as throughout the Korean peninsula.
Now all it has left is an area some 400 square kilometers wide, mostly in Russia’s Primorye region – a tiny blotch on the world map.
The Amur leopard was placed on a protected species list as early as 1956, but the ban was hard to enforce. Border guard officers wanting to transfer from the Far East to some less remote place were rumored to be charged two leopard skins by their superiors, environmentalists say.
By the early 2000’s, only some 30 leopards remained in the wild, including only five fertile females. Some 200 Amur leopards live in captivity, but most are descendants of only two males, which increases the risks of inbreeding and its inherent health problems.
“When I first came here, I didn’t want to work on the leopard at all,” Darman said. “I thought it was a lost cause.”
Khokhryakov said he felt the same, but then national pride kicked in. “How come we can send stuff to Mars but not save a species at home?” he asked.

Bad Neighborhood

The Khasan district, the last refuge of the Amur leopard, is not really a good place for a far-ranging reclusive cat thriving on roe deer and the occasional dog.
A closed military zone in Soviet times, the district saw its economy virtually ruined when the army pulled out after the USSR’s perestroika reforms, leaving kilometers of empty barracks.
Left unemployed, many locals turned to poaching just to feed their families. Professional poachers also emerged, butchering salmon for caviar, boiling frogs for fat, a precious commodity in China, and inflicting other damage on local food chains that are topped by leopards and tigers.
Some poachers specifically targeted leopards, though they are now “over and done with,” Darman said with a scowl.
The locals also use fire as a primary means of clearing stubble in fields, not bothering too much if it spreads to the forest afterwards, threatening the cats’ habitat.
Even the Ivanov-backed nature reserve burned unhindered for days this spring, said WWF employee Andrei Fereferov.
He saved the day back then by raising a media fuss, which prompted the regional authorities to dispatch enough people and equipment to swiftly put out the fire. That was despite earlier claims that they had no resources for the job.
In some places, the local economy actually thrived: a railway and a federal highway pass through the area, serving both a stream of tourists heading for the beaches in the district's south and an inflow of goods to local ports.
At its peak, the traffic is 11 cars per minute, which makes it almost impossible for animals to safely cross the road. Even a tigress died under the wheels three years ago, and though no leopards have been hit, a lot of their prey is becoming roadkill, diminishing the food base.
Construction of a gas pipeline to China across the district is also underway. And that's not to mention the three firing ranges and the legal hunting grounds that the military, including the marines of the Pacific Fleet, has kept here and puts to active use.
“The fleet petitioned to not include the hunting grounds in the reserve because it's needed for the 5,000 sailors and their wives and children,” said Svetlana Titova, who oversees protected areas at WWF Russia’s far eastern branch.
“They claimed that otherwise the combat efficiency of the Pacific Fleet will be compromised,” she said.
Another threat is the Amur tiger, also an endangered species, which is not above killing or maiming a leopard in a territorial dispute.
“The job would have been a thousand times easier had the leopard been anywhere else in the region,” said Khokhryakov, who himself previously worked to save the Amur tiger in the Lazovsky nature reserve elsewhere in Primorye.

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Cat Man to the Rescue

The original nature reserve in the area, Kedrovaya Pad, spanned a mere 18,000 hectares and had a budget of just 7 million rubles ($230,000).
Environmentalists have spent years campaigning to have it expanded. “I've made enemies of everyone in these parts,” said Darman, himself a native of Irkutsk in eastern Siberia.
Indeed, the local press is full of stories vehemently attacking the leopard backers, who are accused of seeking to obtain land for personal gain, and squeezing out longtime residents – a claim they indignantly dismiss.
Only the interference of Ivanov, now the chief of Kremlin staff, made it possible to overrule the resistance of local authorities and communities and set up a national park spanning 262,000 hectares.
“Putin's protecting tigers, so Ivanov showed subordination and picked a smaller animal!” an environmental activist quipped, referring to President Vladimir Putin's much-publicized involvement in saving the Amur tigers, some 500 of whom now live in the wild.
There is an alternative explanation. “He's just a cat person!” said Titova of WWF.
The total protected area is set to span 370,000 hectares by the year's end. Combined with 320,000 hectares of nature reserves on the Chinese side of the border, this will provide enough land for some 100 to 120 leopards – enough to ensure the immediate survival of the subspecies, experts say.
But a separate reserve population is needed to ensure the leopards are not wiped out by some epidemics, nature park deputy director Khokhryakov said. Work is underway, with a program awaiting sanction from Moscow.
Gun Under the Pillow
The Land of the Leopard houses more than 80 landowners, including several rural settlements and the Pacific Fleet marines and their firing range. Most of the inhabitants are armed, and unhappy at finding themselves residents of a national park.
“I've slept with a handgun under my pillow for three years,” said Khokhryakov, who used to head the nature reserve until a Moscow-ordered reshuffle this month.
More than 430 administrative offences have been recorded in connection with violations of the park in its first year alone, he said.
The WWF has launched an extensive education campaign for locals, printing out leaflets for each of the 30,000-plus district residents and making schools choose a leopard to “adopt.”
In the mid-2000’s, most locals polled by the WWF said they would shoot a leopard upon meeting it, but now the only deaths are accidental, with cats shot when mistaken for other game, Titova said.
The district has formidable potential for eco-tourism, but all it has to offer for now is an improvised “eco-track” complete with faded laminated photographs of plants and taiga wildlife, and wooden animals carved by inmates of a local prison.
Khokhryakov, who now oversees tourism at the reserve, is dismissive of regional officials’ attention to tourism development, which does not make his job any easier. “All they care about is how to stock the bar,” he says.

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Money Doesn't Save Leopards

Anatoly Belov, declared the world’s best ranger by none other than Britain’s Prince Philip in 2010, works in the Land of the Leopard.
Working on a nature reserve is not lucrative. Khokhryakov recalled how he used to feed his family in Soviet times on tiger meat confiscated from poachers (“tastes like veal,” he said).
Rangers at the Land of the Leopard earn an average 17,000-18,000 rubles ($550-580) a month, a reasonable income for the Russian countryside.
They also get various monetary bonuses and are granted overseas trips, said Sergei Bereznyuk of the Phoenix fund, a local charity that supports the reserve with money and the occasional quad bike.
Still, most of the personnel are enthusiastic professionals who are not in for the money, both Darman and Khokhryakov said.
But enthusiasm for the mission is in short supply outside the Land of the Leopard.
The WWF used to run seven “leopard's friends groups” stocked with local teens and college students, but now, there are only enough people for three, said Titova.
“The kids just don't care anymore,” she said.
The adults are not much better. The annual budget of the nature reserve stands at 90 million rubles – under $3 million, a fraction of the $22 billion price tag for the recent Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Primorye.
About 40 million rubles comes from the state, thanks to Ivanov's lobbying. Otherwise, most prominent donors are not Russian citizens or companies, but Britons and Germans, Darman said.
“Only the government can save a species,” he said. “Public groups can only do odd jobs.”
Titova pointed that the WWF has been doing the government's job for years.
Creating a second leopard population will cost an estimated $10 million, experts estimate. Nobody can say where the money will come from.
There are five more nature reserves and two national parks in the region, many of them bigger than the Land of the Leopard, but also underfunded and understaffed. Unfortunately for the animals there, they have no films to show to big beasts in government.

http://en.ria.ru/analysis/20120918/176033761.html
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Amur Leopard: The Cat That Should Have Died

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© RIA Novosti.
14:54 18/09/2012
BARABASH/MOSCOW, September 18 (Alexey Eremenko, RIA Novosti)


It all began when then-Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov saw a movie about leopards.
“We’d be nowhere without him,” said Yury Darman of World Wildlife Fund Russia, who spent a decade trying to save the Amur leopard, the rarest of leopard subspecies.
“It’s really about Ivanov, not the leopard,” Darman said. “The leopard was here forever, but then Ivanov came along.”
The educational film, Save Each of the Survivors!, which Ivanov saw in 2010, prompted the man once tipped to be President Vladimir Putin’s successor to lobby for the creation of the world’s only nature reserve for the near-extinct big cat.
Now the leopards, which reside in a less than ideal location for an endangered species to live in, have a shot at surviving, ecologists say.
But they still face plenty of dangers, including wildfires, hungry tigers, a shrinking gene pool and marines with hunting rifles.
Also threatening their survival are things that big cats usually do not have to deal with, like rural poverty, the state of Russian exports and even the shortcomings of the country’s youth policy.
At least there were 13 leopard cubs born last year, up from zero in 2001, Darman said.

The Last of the Leopards

“In theory, the Amur leopard should have died out a decade ago,” said Sergei Khokhryakov, deputy director of the Land of the Leopard national park which is home to the last 40 to 50 Amur leopards. “There is some factor we underestimate or don’t understand about it.”
The far eastern leopard, one of nine subspecies of Panthera pardus across the globe, once ranged as far as Beijing in the west and the coast of the Sea of Japan in the east, as well as throughout the Korean peninsula.
Now all it has left is an area some 400 square kilometers wide, mostly in Russia’s Primorye region – a tiny blotch on the world map.
The Amur leopard was placed on a protected species list as early as 1956, but the ban was hard to enforce. Border guard officers wanting to transfer from the Far East to some less remote place were rumored to be charged two leopard skins by their superiors, environmentalists say.
By the early 2000’s, only some 30 leopards remained in the wild, including only five fertile females. Some 200 Amur leopards live in captivity, but most are descendants of only two males, which increases the risks of inbreeding and its inherent health problems.
“When I first came here, I didn’t want to work on the leopard at all,” Darman said. “I thought it was a lost cause.”
Khokhryakov said he felt the same, but then national pride kicked in. “How come we can send stuff to Mars but not save a species at home?” he asked.

Bad Neighborhood

The Khasan district, the last refuge of the Amur leopard, is not really a good place for a far-ranging reclusive cat thriving on roe deer and the occasional dog.
A closed military zone in Soviet times, the district saw its economy virtually ruined when the army pulled out after the USSR’s perestroika reforms, leaving kilometers of empty barracks.
Left unemployed, many locals turned to poaching just to feed their families. Professional poachers also emerged, butchering salmon for caviar, boiling frogs for fat, a precious commodity in China, and inflicting other damage on local food chains that are topped by leopards and tigers.
Some poachers specifically targeted leopards, though they are now “over and done with,” Darman said with a scowl.
The locals also use fire as a primary means of clearing stubble in fields, not bothering too much if it spreads to the forest afterwards, threatening the cats’ habitat.
Even the Ivanov-backed nature reserve burned unhindered for days this spring, said WWF employee Andrei Fereferov.
He saved the day back then by raising a media fuss, which prompted the regional authorities to dispatch enough people and equipment to swiftly put out the fire. That was despite earlier claims that they had no resources for the job.
In some places, the local economy actually thrived: a railway and a federal highway pass through the area, serving both a stream of tourists heading for the beaches in the district's south and an inflow of goods to local ports.
At its peak, the traffic is 11 cars per minute, which makes it almost impossible for animals to safely cross the road. Even a tigress died under the wheels three years ago, and though no leopards have been hit, a lot of their prey is becoming roadkill, diminishing the food base.
Construction of a gas pipeline to China across the district is also underway. And that's not to mention the three firing ranges and the legal hunting grounds that the military, including the marines of the Pacific Fleet, has kept here and puts to active use.
“The fleet petitioned to not include the hunting grounds in the reserve because it's needed for the 5,000 sailors and their wives and children,” said Svetlana Titova, who oversees protected areas at WWF Russia’s far eastern branch.
“They claimed that otherwise the combat efficiency of the Pacific Fleet will be compromised,” she said.
Another threat is the Amur tiger, also an endangered species, which is not above killing or maiming a leopard in a territorial dispute.
“The job would have been a thousand times easier had the leopard been anywhere else in the region,” said Khokhryakov, who himself previously worked to save the Amur tiger in the Lazovsky nature reserve elsewhere in Primorye.

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Cat Man to the Rescue

The original nature reserve in the area, Kedrovaya Pad, spanned a mere 18,000 hectares and had a budget of just 7 million rubles ($230,000).
Environmentalists have spent years campaigning to have it expanded. “I've made enemies of everyone in these parts,” said Darman, himself a native of Irkutsk in eastern Siberia.
Indeed, the local press is full of stories vehemently attacking the leopard backers, who are accused of seeking to obtain land for personal gain, and squeezing out longtime residents – a claim they indignantly dismiss.
Only the interference of Ivanov, now the chief of Kremlin staff, made it possible to overrule the resistance of local authorities and communities and set up a national park spanning 262,000 hectares.
“Putin's protecting tigers, so Ivanov showed subordination and picked a smaller animal!” an environmental activist quipped, referring to President Vladimir Putin's much-publicized involvement in saving the Amur tigers, some 500 of whom now live in the wild.
There is an alternative explanation. “He's just a cat person!” said Titova of WWF.
The total protected area is set to span 370,000 hectares by the year's end. Combined with 320,000 hectares of nature reserves on the Chinese side of the border, this will provide enough land for some 100 to 120 leopards – enough to ensure the immediate survival of the subspecies, experts say.
But a separate reserve population is needed to ensure the leopards are not wiped out by some epidemics, nature park deputy director Khokhryakov said. Work is underway, with a program awaiting sanction from Moscow.
Gun Under the Pillow
The Land of the Leopard houses more than 80 landowners, including several rural settlements and the Pacific Fleet marines and their firing range. Most of the inhabitants are armed, and unhappy at finding themselves residents of a national park.
“I've slept with a handgun under my pillow for three years,” said Khokhryakov, who used to head the nature reserve until a Moscow-ordered reshuffle this month.
More than 430 administrative offences have been recorded in connection with violations of the park in its first year alone, he said.
The WWF has launched an extensive education campaign for locals, printing out leaflets for each of the 30,000-plus district residents and making schools choose a leopard to “adopt.”
In the mid-2000’s, most locals polled by the WWF said they would shoot a leopard upon meeting it, but now the only deaths are accidental, with cats shot when mistaken for other game, Titova said.
The district has formidable potential for eco-tourism, but all it has to offer for now is an improvised “eco-track” complete with faded laminated photographs of plants and taiga wildlife, and wooden animals carved by inmates of a local prison.
Khokhryakov, who now oversees tourism at the reserve, is dismissive of regional officials’ attention to tourism development, which does not make his job any easier. “All they care about is how to stock the bar,” he says.

Posted Image

Money Doesn't Save Leopards

Anatoly Belov, declared the world’s best ranger by none other than Britain’s Prince Philip in 2010, works in the Land of the Leopard.
Working on a nature reserve is not lucrative. Khokhryakov recalled how he used to feed his family in Soviet times on tiger meat confiscated from poachers (“tastes like veal,” he said).
Rangers at the Land of the Leopard earn an average 17,000-18,000 rubles ($550-580) a month, a reasonable income for the Russian countryside.
They also get various monetary bonuses and are granted overseas trips, said Sergei Bereznyuk of the Phoenix fund, a local charity that supports the reserve with money and the occasional quad bike.
Still, most of the personnel are enthusiastic professionals who are not in for the money, both Darman and Khokhryakov said.
But enthusiasm for the mission is in short supply outside the Land of the Leopard.
The WWF used to run seven “leopard's friends groups” stocked with local teens and college students, but now, there are only enough people for three, said Titova.
“The kids just don't care anymore,” she said.
The adults are not much better. The annual budget of the nature reserve stands at 90 million rubles – under $3 million, a fraction of the $22 billion price tag for the recent Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Primorye.
About 40 million rubles comes from the state, thanks to Ivanov's lobbying. Otherwise, most prominent donors are not Russian citizens or companies, but Britons and Germans, Darman said.
“Only the government can save a species,” he said. “Public groups can only do odd jobs.”
Titova pointed that the WWF has been doing the government's job for years.
Creating a second leopard population will cost an estimated $10 million, experts estimate. Nobody can say where the money will come from.
There are five more nature reserves and two national parks in the region, many of them bigger than the Land of the Leopard, but also underfunded and understaffed. Unfortunately for the animals there, they have no films to show to big beasts in government.

http://en.ria.ru/analysis/20120918/176033761.html
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