Animals in Danger
Amur Leopard
The mass consumption of leopard skins and medicinal products made from tiger parts is a serious problem that has seen the Amur leopard and tiger hunted down to within a whisker of extinction. Once critically endangered with numbers dwindling down to just 30 cats, according to a census taken by the World Wildlife Foundation (WWF) in the year 2000, the Amur leopard is now protected within Russia’s Land of the Leopard National Park where more than 400 cameras have been strategically planted to capture images of wildlife, specifically the Amur leopard. As of April 2018, the cameras have captured 84 adult cats and 19 cubs within the park, an increase from the 70 surveyed in 2015. Established in 2012, the park is the primary roaming grounds of the Amur leopard where there is sufficient prey for its survival and it is protected from poachers. Amur leopards are top predators in the Amur forest and are crucial for keeping the right balance of species in the Amur area.
Amur Tiger
Also known as the Siberian tiger, the Amur tiger was in danger of extinction in 1995 with only 330 to 371 adult cats left. After intervention by the WWF, their numbers had crept upwards to 540 in the wild (including some 100 cubs) by December 2017. Much of the progress in the conservation of the Amur tiger lies in the work of men like Pavel Fomenko, head of WWF Russia’s Rare Species Conservation, who have been fighting tiger poachers seeking tiger skins and parts for the Asian medicinal market. The WWF hopes to increase the world’s tiger population to more than 6,000 by 2022, up from the 3,900 counted in 2016. Russian President Vladimir Putin has been instrumental in the protection of the Amur tiger. Regarding the Amur tiger as a symbol of national pride, Putin’s government agreed to restrict logging in the habitat of the Amur tiger. His presidential order in 2011 banned the logging of Korean pine but that did not stop illegal loggers. Russia has since increased penalties for poaching and possession of tiger parts.
“The mass consumption of leopard skins and medicinal products made from tiger parts is a serious threat to the Amur leopard and Amur tiger”