cooncat2

I guess I'm on a roll today. Not Africa but of interest to the group. They shot her in the tailbone, and when she tumbled over, they beat her in the head.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070423/...sia_leopard_dc

divewop

Sharon-
I also posted this terrible news story under the Planet Earth series thread earlier today. What made it hit home even more was that they showed the beautiful cats on the episodes aired last night.

cooncat3

Sandy - It made my blood boil and I had tears running down my cheeks. I guess we ask this question all the time, but I cannot fathom what would drive someone to such senseless cruelty. I don't have cable TV, but these are the last few remaining females I understand. What, six or seven left? Shame, shame, shame.

divewop

Sharon-
I'm glad you said that you cried. I did too when I read that horrible article. Longer than I thought I would. I don't know why but I think it just made me feel so angry and upset and more importantly, so helpless!

The Amur mother and her year old male cub shown last night on Planet Earth were so breathtakingly beautiful, I couldn't imagine anyone doing these precious cats any harm.

Then, today, to read how this one was killed made me sick to my stomach. I just don't understand the mentality of people who do things like that and I doubt I never will.

I could wax on and on about this but nothing will bring her back. I just hope it's not to late to save these cats from extinction.

divewop

Oops..."doubt I never will" = "doubt I ever will'

Kavey

How horrendous! Was this a trophy hunter or a local hunter I wonder? It would be almost impossible to protect the last few of these cats 100% effectively as they are so hard to locate that even the camera crews find them extremely illusive after months of looking. So it wouldn't be possible to have a guardian with each cat or anything in which case hunters could get "lucky".

It's so heartbreaking that this species, this beautiful species, is likely already doomed to extinction since numbers are already too low to be viable apparently.

Clematis1

Oh Kavey, it is just tragic. Since the poor leopard was left there, it doesn't seem like it a trophy hunter or even a local hunter. It seems more like a sick person (not that I don't think trophy hunting isn't sick - I do). It is just unfathomable.

Kavey

It's hard to tell much from the article isn't it? If you come across anything with more detail please post the link?


http://www.justgiving.com/kavey

PredatorBiologist

Tragic, made worse that it was a female.

The Amur leopard is not its own species but rather a subspecies of the common leopards that range throughout Africa and Asia. This is very similar to the Florida panther subspecies of the mountain lion being reduced to an isolated pocket. While the species remain secure its a big loss in the species genetic diversity to lose the subspecies that has adapted to the edge of the range. We have a pair of Amur leopard at the Denver Zoo, there are about 200 in zoos but re-introducing a solitary predator from captivity is unprecedented -- the status is certainly dire.

wildcatzoo

I volunteer at the Feline COnservation Center in Rosamond where we breed the Amur leopard, we have 12. There is talk of future reintroduction programs but of course until the habitat is safe from poachers that is useless. We also work with artificial reproductive techniques which could be used to reintroduce the captive bloodlines into the wild in other ways.

The poachers there are local hunters after anything that moves. They also kill all the large ungulates that are the leopard's prey, another barrier to reintroductions.

Nancy
http://www.wildcatzoo.org/

divewop

Nancy-
Firstly, I just visited your website and want to thank you all for the work that you do. I know it's a struggle to ensure that endangered species survive in this cruel world of poaching and habitat loss. And I understand the difficulty of raising funds for such causes.

You bring up a point about reintroduction of the Amur into the wild when the habitat is safe from poachers. Is that going to be a realistic possibility in the future?

I don't think anywhere will ever be completely safe from poachers, even in the most protected parks and reserves.

I'm very interested in learning how your foundation will determine when the time is right for the reintroduction process.

Best of luck to you guys!

atravelynn

Your title is enough to sicken me. To be honest I didn't even read the article. I only hope the poor animal died quickly.

PredatorBiologist

Nancy: what are the thoughts of being successful with a reintroduction of leopard under ideal conditions. I'm not aware of any large solitary predators being introduced from captivity. I would imagine an innovative training regiment, including large enclosure hunting opportunities would be required as preparation. Supplemental wild feeding would likely be needed as their skills develop after release. Red wolves had the advantage of being social animals and the mortality rates were extreme before populations were established and there was also difficulty for black-footed ferrets which live amongst abundant prey that would seem to have a much easier learning curve. Virtually all other re-introductions were done with translocated wild individuals. I'd be very interested to hear more about the potential for reintroduction.

Introducting the genetic lines through artificial means seems like a much more feasible tool but of course that improves the gene pool but not necessarily the numbers. With Florida panthers I know there was consideration (possibly even happened) with bringing in mountain lions from Texas which would interfere with the purity of the sub-species gene pool but help salvage numbers and thus keep the population going rather than lose all the genetic diversity. I wonder if there is a point where other leopard sub-species would ever be introduced rather than lose the population all together. Would love to hear any thoughts on these issues.

wildcatzoo

PredatorBiologist: yes, wild Texas cougars were released into Florida a few years back and have done wonders for the Florida panther. More cubs, healthier cubs. The subspecies of cougars are still under debate, there really isn't much difference.

Similarly the North Chinese leopard "panthera pardus japonensis" is the closest to the Amur leopard "panthera pardus orientalis" and could be a possibility for Amur supplementation. But there's only a few thousand of them left and they live in very remote areas.

The Tigris foundation and other European groups are the ones studying the feasibility of introducing captive born Amurs into the wild, it is a ton of work. We would just supply cubs, not participate in the training.

As for other ways to introduce captive bloodlines without training an adult to hunt: inseminate a wild female with semen from a captive male, locate the den of a wild mother and sneak in an extra cub (really, this is doable!), and enclose a large area with a pregnant captive-born female and let her raise her cubs in it, supplying live prey.

Nancy
http://www.wildcatzoo.org/

waynehazle

This is the same problem the tiger has right?

I would love nothing more than to hear that India has a great breeding and reintroduction program. Sigh

Kavey

Thanks PB and Nancy for the additional information. I know very little about the Amur leopard other than what I have seen on wildlife programmes and those have focused more on behaviour, habitat and amazing footage than practical issues of the species' survival.



http://www.justgiving.com/kavey

divewop

Wayne-
Speaking of tiger reintroduction, beginning in Africa, an interesting article:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18274337/

wildcatzoo

Kavey,

I'm actually reading these boards because I'm planning a trip to Africa for October/November. Your recent trip report helped me decide to splurge on 2 days at Mala Mala instead of Elephant Plains. We're also going to Mashatu! I'll post an itinerary when it's finalized, in the meantime here's my trip report from 2003 when I volunteered for a month with Cheetah Conservation Botswana:

http://www.wildcatzoo.org/africa03.html

nancy

CarlaM

I didn't want to read this article but did want to address Nancy (wildcatzoo) that I just discovered your website and it is amazing what you are doing. I am so excited that you are not too far away from LA and I MUST come for a visit (or two hundred! ). You have some cats that I have never even heard of...they are gorgeous. It would be great to meet you and the animals and talk about our upcoming trips to Africa.

atravelynn

This posting has 2 purposes.

1--Sharon, please post some of your cat pictures so we can see them. I think you did include one with the Africa ones once.

2--I am trying to get that long title to 51 so I does not mess up the left column. The more posts in front of it the sooner it will happen.