Wild Amur Leopard: Pulling Back from the Brink

The Amur leopard is the world's rarest wild cat, with fewer than 120 individuals remaining. Conservation success offers welfare lessons for large carnivore recovery.

Key Facts

Amur leopards are native to the temperate forests of the Russian Far East and northeast China.
The population reached a low of around 35 individuals in the early 2000s before recovering to 100+ through intensive conservation.
Land of the Leopard National Park, established in 2012, protects critical habitat and has been central to the recovery.
Anti-poaching operations, prey restoration (increasing deer and wild boar populations), and monitoring have driven the increase.
Each individual leopard is known and tracked — camera trap networks identify individuals by spot patterns.
Genetic analysis shows the small population has survived a severe bottleneck but remains at risk from inbreeding.

Welfare Considerations

The Amur leopard's welfare and conservation story demonstrates the feasibility of recovering critically small carnivore populations through sustained, intensive intervention. Individual leopards are vulnerable to snaring, poisoning, and habitat-related prey scarcity — welfare threats that anti-poaching and habitat protection directly address. The camera trap monitoring that tracks each individual for conservation purposes also provides welfare data: injured animals can be identified and rescued, and behavioural indicators of chronic stress monitored. The recovery from 35 to 100+ individuals represents not just a conservation success but welfare improvement for a population of animals that now has more prey, more space, and less persecution. This success is replicable with sufficient political will and resources.

What You Can Do

Support WWF and WCS Amur leopard conservation programmes in Russia and China.
Advocate for continued funding of Land of the Leopard National Park and the protected area network.
Donate to anti-poaching operations protecting individual Amur leopards from snaring and persecution.
Support captive breeding programmes (Amur Leopard Species Survival Plan) as an insurance against wild extinction.