Russia (bbabo.net) - Scientists have verified the "identity" of a leopard that cameras recorded on the other side of the Trans-Siberian Railway and the federal highway for the first time in 10 years of observations. Employees of the "Land of the Leopard" studied the pattern on its skin and came to the conclusion that this animal had not previously fallen into the lenses of camera traps, this is a new member of the Red Book family, the reserve's press service reports.
According to Marina Syritsa, head of the Science Department of the Land of the Leopard Federal State Budgetary Institution, the data obtained indicate that the animals began to settle not only in neighboring China, but also in other parts of the historical range in Russia.
- Particularly important is the fact that leopards find places to cross the Trans-Siberian Railway and the Vladivostok-Khabarovsk highway. This confirms the need to create an ecological corridor through the highway and the Trans-Siberian at the Uglovaya-Ussuriysk section, which is provided for by the road map for the conservation and restoration of the Amur leopard population in the Russian Federation, she noted.
The leopard was assigned a personal identification number - Leo 224M.
On the eve it became known that the spotted cat was caught on camera traps by wildlife photographer Igor Metelsky, and cameras installed by WWF Russia in the Severnaya hunting farm in the Nadezhdinsky district of Primorye. In these places, leopards disappeared 50 years ago.
In the 19th century, the Far Eastern leopard lived on the territory of the Korean Peninsula, in the eastern provinces of China and in the southern part of the Sikhote-Alin ridge in Primorye. But by the middle of the last century, the species had disappeared in China. In the Sikhote-Alin, a rare cat ceased to be found by the mid-1980s.
The disappearance is associated with deforestation, poaching, and fires. It got to the point that there were only 35 individuals in the wild. In recent years, a lot of security work has been going on, and now, according to experts, at least 110 adult spotted cats live in the territory of the Leopard Land National Park.
bbabo.Net