Nathan McWhinnie

The Amur Leopard, A Critically Endangered species 

Everyone knows that they are endangered species but did you know that there are some species that are so critically endangered that they could be gone within the next couple of years?

The amur leopard lives in remote, elevated and cold parts of russia and china, due to habitat loss and hunting, their numbers have been slashed down to only 120 specimens left in the entire world.

Do you like cats? Do you own a cat? Did you know that the Amur Leopard is the world's rarest cat.

We desperately need to urgently rescue the Amur leopard from total annihilation!

The main reason for the decline with the population of the Amur Leopard has been because of habitat loss due to road building, forest fires, farming, industrial development and unsustainable logging.

The second reason is because of the brutal hunting and slaughtering by those heartless poaches.

But for my third point, We can still save these beautiful cats by establishing reserves where there will be urgent breeding programs to help save these majestic creatures.

My first point is that the Amur Leopard is losing and has lost most of its habitat since an estimated time between 1970-1983 critically damaging their ecosystem as they are one of the main predators in their regions.

 these gorgeous cats lost over 80% of their former territory and if they lose all their territory or their numbers thin out that can cost us our water, air and land as the Amur Leopard hunts herbivores and unhealthy animals to clean up the local ecosystem, this can cost damaging our precious air, water and land says evidence from the “World Wildlife Fund” and the “arcGIS story maps.” Another reason for these beautiful cats to have loss of habitat is due to industrial development  Southwest Primorye is located close to the Russian borders with China and North Korea, making it an attractive area for infrastructure projects such as new railways, gas and oil pipelines and ports. In 2005 and 2006 ZSL and its local partner, Phoenix Fund led a successful international campaign against a plan to build an oil pipeline terminal on the coast of the Sea of Japan in the range of both the Amur leopard and tiger. We desperately need to rescue these beautiful cats.

For my second point I will talk about the effects of the brutal hunting and relentless poaching of the Amur Leopard and the indirect hunting of their prey such as the deer, moose and boar and when those types of prey aren't available they will even try and eat smaller game like rabbit and mice. The amur leopard doesn't always have hunting options available for them so they seek out alternate prey like farm animals and usually end up getting shot and killed by farmers and private landowners. Amur leopards are often hunted for their unique spotted fur and their bones which are used in asian medicine. The shrinking habitat of the amur leopard makes them easy prey for hunters and poachers giving them little room to run and hide. These majestic animals need to be saved right now or else.

For my third point I urgently need to argue that we DESPERATELY need to help these beautiful animals by rescuing them from the wild and hosting a rehabilitation program that will breed the amur leopard which is desperately needed. The solution is here, we need to help these amazing cats because they are already the world's rarest cat, we don't need them to be added to the world's extinct animals because then the ecosystem is damaged and then we will never get these cats back ever and then overpopulation by the amur leopards prey. BUT here's the good news. My idea is not only in my head, places all over the world are trying to run the same rehabilitation projects like the Minnesota zoo and the wildlife vets international, so if we can continue this then we can save these beautiful leopards and sustain our ecosystem.

These beautiful leopards need to be saved or else! 

These cats have suffered from hunting, poaching, habitat loss and lack of prey. These cats will soon die out if we don't do anything about it. We need to act NOW and get these rehabilitation programs in place or they will die.