Two decades ago the world’s rarest big cat was down to a few dozen animals. Scientists now count more than 200.
In the early 2000s, the Amur leopard was a rounding error. About 35 of the cats were thought to survive in the wild, scattered through the snowy forests where Russia, China and North Korea meet. Conservationists spoke of it the way doctors speak of a patient in intensive care.
This summer, Russian and Chinese scientists reported at least 223 Amur leopards recorded in the wild, a roughly sixfold increase in twenty years.
A cat that ignores borders
The numbers overlap because the cats do. According to the July report, 135 leopards were recorded in Russia’s Land of the Leopard National Park and 115 in China’s Northeast China Tiger and Leopard National Park, with 27 animals documented on both sides. The two parks form part of a transboundary reserve covering about 1.8 million hectares.
That cross-border cooperation matters. A leopard needs a large, connected territory, and a population this small cannot afford walls in the forest.
The Amur leopard’s recovery is proof that a species written off can be written back in, if people protect enough land for long enough.
What changed
The recovery rests on protected habitat, anti-poaching patrols, camera-trap monitoring that lets scientists recognize individual cats by their spot patterns, and steady funding. Officials credited corporate and government support for the growth.
What has not
Two hundred cats is still a tiny population, vulnerable to disease, forest fires, inbreeding and a single bad winter. The Amur leopard remains one of the most threatened cats on Earth. Its comeback is a beginning, not an ending.
For a foundation that cares about cats of every size, there is a lesson in it. Extinction is not a slope that only goes one way.
The Cat House Foundation ■ Modeling for a Cause. Photo: Pexels.