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Decree on Land of Leopard National Park enters into force in Primorye

The park embraces 60 percent of the habitat of 35 remaining Far Eastern leopards

VLADIVOSTOK, January 16 (Itar-Tass) — Primorsky Territory governor Vladimir Miklushevsky has signed a decree on a new national park in Russia’s Far East to protect critically endangered the Far Eastern (Amur) leopard.

The governor’s decree determines borders and square of the protected zone. Scientists and ecologists participated in the document’s drafting.

The Land of the Leopard National Park declared last April safeguards 262,000 hectares of the habitat of the world’s rarest wild cat in Primorye’s southwest.

The park combines Kedrovya Pad Reserve, Leopardovy Wildlife Refuge, lands of hunting farms and military testing ranges, the border zone with China and the western part of Vladivostok’s Frunzensky district on the Peschany (Sandy) Peninsula.

The park embraces 60 percent of the habitat of 35 remaining Far Eastern leopards.

The Far Eastern leopard inhabits the southwest region of the Primorsky Territory. Over the past 20 years the wild cats’ habitat area has reduced almost by half, while the population shrank to critically low of around 35 leopards.