Documentary

World’s Rarest Cats Caught on Cam

By greenexpander ⋅ May 8, 2008 ⋅  Email This Post ⋅  Print This Post ⋅ Post a comment

This leopard, along with other 7 members of the species, were caught on camera in far southeastern Russia.The Amur leopard is currently considered the world’s rarest cat, according to recent surveys. There are fewer than 40 leopards in the forests of Russia’s Far East and parts of China, 60 fewer than the number needed to insure the survival of the species.

The animals were photographed around Primorskiy,a region of Russia, located at the border between China and North Korea, during a recent census. Pavel Fomenko of WWF Russia, the one that conducted the study, said the leopard population is stable but under threat by an illegal trade in leopard parts. “The goal of utmost importance is to create a unified federal protected area for the leopard,” Fomenko said, “[and that] has not yet been achieved in Primorskiy.”

Sadly, Russia is not acting on keeping the leopard’s population stable. The Russian Ministry of Justice wants to prevent officials in natural reserves from arresting or fining poachers. In the meantime, China is considering lifting the ban on the domestic trade in tiger parts used in traditional medicine.

Another animal as rare as its relative, the rare Asiatic cheetah holds its grown, as can be seen in the following picture. The photograph taken by an automatic “camera trap” in Iran depicts a female cheetah and her four six-month-old cubs. Only 60 cheetas are known to exist in all of Asia, mostly in Iran’s arid central plateau. Previously threatened by hunting and habitat loss, the cheetah now faces a new challenge - human overhunting the gazelle and wild sheep, its main prey.

© image copyright : National Geographic

Tags: cheetah, felines, leopard, rarest cats