Wildlife Heritage Foundation

WHF supports Amur leopard conservation

Given that the Amur leopard is the rarest cat in the wild and a flagship species for WHF´s breeding programme it is very important that we help support the remaining wild population in any way we can afford.

Recent surveys suggest that only about 35 to 40 of these animals survive in the wild and there are around 100 in a carefully managed European breeding programme. WHF plan to maintain two breeding pairs at its Kent breeding facility, due to a shortage of female animals we are currently holding two male animals: Artur and Artem.

Wild Amur leopards are only found in the Russian Far East, within a forest region known as Primorskii Krai — an area where there is also a small population of Amur tigers remaining.

This area of temperate forests extends from the border of China to the Russian coast. There are more people living in this area than one would expect in Eastern Russia and there are many economic pressures on the remaining forest: forestry, oil and gas interests.

An organisation known as ALTA (Amur Leopard and Tiger Alliance), which is an international consortium of interested parties, has a conservation strategy that includes protecting the animals from illegal poaching and other activity in the forests; awareness programmes for the local human population; as well as a compensation scheme for farmers who suffer predation of their stock by leopards and tigers.

A major threat to the animals' habitat are fires set by humans to burn the forest with an aim of producing more open grassland habitat for agricultural use. Conservationists use satellite images to spot the fires early so that teams can be sent in to extinguish the illegal fires.

All this work is designed to protect the remaining animals and encourage growth of the population. Around half of the costs are met by the international zoo community of which WHF is a small part.

The strategy to increase the number of leopards in the wild includes establishing a second population on a separate site but within their historic range. These animals will come from facilities like WHF where we maintain part of the "genetic lifeboat" for this species.

Our colleagues at Zoological Society of London (ZSL) have obtained a three year grant from the UK Darwin Initiative Fund to undertake health screening of both wild leopards and potential prey species. Working with Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and the Russian wildlife authorities, Claudia Schoene, a ZSL vet, is currently assisting Russia in the setting up of wildlife health monitoring for the province.

Claudia has worked with our leopards at WHF and one of our own vets, Dr John Lewis, is actively involved in the programme. WHF has assisted with funds for this work and cost of air fares so the vets can reach this very remote region.

Organisations involved

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  Amur Leopard Conservation Support Programme
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