Green Eyes! Poster

While the Amur Leopard inhabits the same area as the Siberian Tiger, it has received far less attention from the media and from charities. The Amur leopard is the rarest of all the big cats, and is in immediate danger of becoming extinct in the wild. It is suffering from habitat loss and is especially vulnerable to natural disasters, such as fire, because of extensive habitat fragmentation. Amur Leopards prefer to live in forested territory, but most of its remaining territory is surrounded by farms and villages, making poaching easier. Russian plans to building an oil pipeline through the last remaining habitat of the Amur leopard were recently redirected to a safer route after pressure from the WWF and other environmental organisations. A Population Management Plan has been established for this subspecies of leopard. The PMP is a cooperative effort among zoos and other captive-animal facilities to monitor the status and plan breeding of the current captive population. On April 16, 2007 a female was shot and killed by hunters, leaving only six females left in the wild.