Amur Leopard

Together with many wild animals of the world today, the Amur leopard is facing the likelihood of extinction. Their threat is not by means of natural selection or a changing world but by man who has deliberately or unknowingly depleted their habitat and community. Only mans' intervention and realization of the problem can hope to save these animals (Garman 1996). According to Kutscherenko (1995) the wild population of the Amur leopard has dwindled to an estimated 120 to 140 leopards, 30 of which were counted in Russia.

Distribution/Range

The Amur Leopard used to range widely throughout Korea, Manchuria and the Primorskaya Oblast of the USSR but today due to the carelessness of hunters and the destruction of their habitat and the limited selection of prey they are now reduced to reside in remote areas near the China-Russia border and parts of North Korea (Vandermey 1996).

If we were to lump all the subspecies together, the Amur leopard, with the exception of humans is one of the most successful naturally occurring land mammals in the Eastern Hemisphere. In the Eastern Hemisphere the Amur leopard is the king of adaptation, but in the taiga, or boreal forests of Russia, the Amur leopard seems to be most impressive. It is there that the leopard takes on characteristics that are similar to its cousin the Snow leopard, the Amur leopard has long fur and his behavior patterns assist in the conserving of energy and precious heat to sustain the harsh winter conditions (Quigley 1995).

The Amur leopard can adapt to almost any habitat that provides sufficient food and cover, for example in the lowlands forests he may make a home in a bush, caves or ledges on mountains, a thicket in the grasslands, brush country and deserts under he may seek shelter in a rock formation (Anonymous B).

Physical Description

The Amur leopard is usually recognized by its rosette patterned coat and his extremely long dark tail. This cat is sometimes confused with the South American Jaguar, al though the Amur leopard is less stocky and his rosette markings are generally smaller and have no internal spots unlike the Jaguar (Garman 1996).

One fable describing how the leopard got his spots is about a leopard becoming good friends with a fire burning in a clearing. The leopard went to see the fire everyday, the leopards wife annoyed that her husband went the visit the fire every day and the fire not returning the visits she assumed that the fire thought himself to good for their home and was better than them. The leopard explaining this to his new friend asked him to visit. The fire made excuses at first but finally agreed to come telling the leopard that he didn't walk and would need dry leaves to travel his house. The leopard and his wife happily gathered leaves and made a path from the fires clearing to their house. Soon they head a loud crackling and looking out the window say the fire coming towards them. Once he reached the house he reached out his fiery fingers and tried to touch the leopard and his wife who was scared and ran back into the house. By then the fire had spread to the house eventually burning it down, the fire was never ask back to visit again and the leopard and his wife we left with black marks all over their body where the fire touched them (Loxton 1973).

Background color can range from pale straw and gray huff to a bright ocher and chestnut. In the summer the coat is a bright reddish-yellow color, and in the winter the coat takes on a much lighter color. The rest of the body is covered with dark spots in the pattern of rosettes with the exception of the underarms which are white. Typically, the spots start out small on the head and get larger when you reach the belly region and out to the limbs. The back of the ears are often black with a white spot (Anonymous B 1996).

In the Amur-Ussuri region the coat tends to be longer and more thick with larger spots (Bertram 1993). Amur cubs have dark woolly fur with spots close together that are difficult to distinguish with the coat becoming lighter and the spots becoming more distinct with age (Garman 1996).

A fully-grown male Amur leopard may weigh as much as 100 to 200 pounds with the females weighing in at approximately 70 to 80 pounds. Leopards from cold mountain regions tend to be larger than average to accommodate harsh conditions (Vandermey 1996). An average adult leopard can reach an outstanding 8 feet from head to the tip of the tail. The combined head and body length can vary from 3 to 6 feet; with the tail averaging 23 to 44 inches. Standing, from feet to shoulder they can reach a height of 18 to 32 inches, again with the females being a third the size of the males (Anonymous B 1996).

Once thought to be a black panther, some leopards are black all over. Borne from the same litter as normal leopards the black color is a result of an recessive gene which seems to appear more often with leopards living in deep forest and mountain regions. These black leopards still possess the black rosette patterns only they are more difficult to see at a distance (Loxton 1973).

Natural History

Food Habits

A leopard will eat almost anything that moves, its diet includes a variety of animals such as: roe deer, wild boar muck deer, badgers, raccoons, manchurian hares (Anonymous B 1996); squirrel, muskrat, deer, mink, marmots, steppe antelope, mountain goats, Caucasian deer, monkeys, raccoon dog, antelope, gazelle, chamois, dung beetles, antelopes, impala, steenbuck, bushbuck, reedbuck, nyala, klipspringer, waterbuck, zebra foals, wildebeest calves, warthog, dassies, cane rats, hares and ground birds (Burton 1993). Because they do prey on crop destroying animals such as baboons, rats, rabbits and other destructive animals, they are pardoned for the occasional attacks on domestic live stock (Loxton 1973).

Normally leopards do not go after humans, but it has been known for individual leopards to develop a taste for only one kind of prey. This specialization of prey explains the occasional man killers. Once they have killed a human whether it was for protecting their young or if they were cornered they may start to acquirer a taste for human flesh after the first taste (Burton 1990).

Reproduction

There are no firm records indicating a breeding season but it seems most mating takes place during January and February. Females are usually sexually receptive in intervals of 3 to 7 weeks for a period of 2 to 3 days during which mating is frequent. When in heat a female will make a rasping sound ( sounds like a saw being used on coarse wood) to attract a male and she may also do so to call her cubs (Bertram 1993).