Amur leopards settled down in Jilin
2016-08-01
An infrared camera hidden in the Wangjing National Reserve in Jilin has captured something beautiful—an Amur leopard being followed by an energetic cub.
The footage, published recently shows a female leopard leading a 1-year-old male cub. According to one staff member, they appeared in five video clips taken in early December last year, and "the mother leopard can be seen pacing back and forth in the snowy forest, while her cub was running or jumping, and sometimes bending over the ground, shaking his tail.”
"We usually wait until late spring when the weather turns warm to collect data," added the staff member. Forestry workers are now reviewing footage from the winter.
This isn't the first images taken of this big cat family as leopard spotting are becoming more and more frequent in the reserve. One Amur leopard with two 6-month-old cubs was filmed in 2013, 10 kilometers away from the 2016 monitoring spot.
The Amur leopard is listed as "endangered" by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, and usually inhabits eastern parts of Russia, and they are now crossing the border into Northeast China's Jilin province. "Wangqing National Reserve is now a new habitat for Amur leopard," said Wang Fuyou, director of the reserve's conservation department. "The newly identified leopard family is different from what we found in 2013."
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Jilin Provincial Forestry Bureau publishes the footage taken in December last year showing a female leopard leading a 1-year-old male cub. [Photo provided to ejilin.gov.cn] |
According to a 2-year field study conducted by Beijing Normal University and Jilin Provincial Forest Bureau from 2012 to 2014, 42 Amur leopards were documented in Northeast China's Jilin province.
Over the past a few years, the provincial government has forbidden hunting and combated illegal poaching, and in 2015 halted logging operations.
"Jilin has seen an increasing number of flagship animals such as the Amur leopard," said Yu Changchun, director of the Jilin Provincial Forestry Bureau's conservation department.
"The species is producing new generations, and they have settled down here in Jilin."