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Amur leopard conservation center opens in Russian Far East

Far Eastern leopard population has increased from 30 to 80 species over the past five years

VLADIVOSTOK, September 20. /TASS/. An Amur leopard conservation center was opened in the village Barabash in the Primorsky Region on Wednesday. It is located in the new central farmstead of the national park "Leopard’s land", the park’s press service said.

"The construction of the national park’s central farmstead - Leopard’s land - has been completed in the village Barabash. The facility has become the world’s biggest conservation center for the Amur leopard, and getting it up and running will launch a new era into studying and preserving the planet’s rarest big cats," the representative of the park told TASS.

"We have managed to create a place where the lines between man and nature are blurred, where dozens of our management staff members will be able to work for the benefit of the amur leopard and its home," park’s director Tatiana Baranovskaya noted.

The ‘Leopard’s land’ national park was created five years ago in 2012 to preserve the rarest amur leopards, whose number has dwindled to only 35 animals at present. The park’s total area is 282,000 hectares. In a short time not only did the park’s staff manage to stabilize rare species population but to achieve a considerable increase in its numbers. Now, these large cats inhabit the Primorsky Region and China, their total population is estimated at about 80 animals.