How Many Amur Leopards Are Left? Population and Recovery

How many Amur leopards are there today?

Recent estimates from camera-trap surveys put the wild population at roughly 128–130 subadult and adult leopards, most of them in Russia’s Land of the Leopard National Park and the rest across the border in China. Cubs born each year add to this number, while deaths subtract from it, so the count changes from year to year.

All of these leopards form a single population straddling the Russia–China border. That makes cooperation between the two countries essential, because the same cat may be photographed on both sides of the frontier within days.

How the population has changed

The Amur leopard once lived across the Russian Far East, northeast China and the whole Korean Peninsula. Hunting for skins, logging, farming and the loss of deer prey wiped it out from most of that area during the 20th century. The last known leopard in South Korea was caught in 1970.

These figures come from different methods and areas, so they are not perfectly comparable. Early counts used tracks in snow, while modern counts identify each leopard from its unique spot pattern in camera-trap photos, which is far more reliable. Even so, the upward trend is clear.

How are Amur leopards counted?

Scientists in Russia and China place hundreds of automatic cameras along forest trails, ridges and stream beds. When a leopard walks past, a sensor triggers a photo. Each leopard’s rosettes are as individual as a fingerprint, so researchers compare photographs of both flanks to identify individuals, often helped by computer software.

Land of the Leopard National Park runs one of the largest camera-trap networks in Russia, with more than 400 cameras. A landmark study published in 2018 combined Russian and Chinese camera-trap data for the first time and identified 92 individual leopards across about 8,400 km² (3,240 sq mi) of the border region. Snow tracking and the analysis of droppings add information on diet, health and movements.

Why the population is recovering

Several changes together turned the decline around:

• New protected areas. Russia created Land of the Leopard National Park in 2012, joining older reserves into one park of about 2,800 km² (1,080 sq mi) southwest of Vladivostok. China formally established the much larger Northeast China Tiger and Leopard National Park in 2021, covering more than 14,000 km² (5,400 sq mi).
• Anti-poaching patrols. Ranger teams and stronger law enforcement have reduced the killing of leopards and of the roe deer, sika deer and wild boar they hunt.
• Fighting forest fires. People once set the land alight to clear fields every spring, and about a fifth of southwest Primorye could burn in a single year, turning forest into open grassland that leopards avoid. Firefighting and education have reduced the damage.
• Rerouted development. A planned oil pipeline through leopard habitat was moved after a campaign by conservationists.
• Cross-border work. Since 2014, Russian and Chinese scientists have shared monitoring data and coordinated protection.

Threats that remain

The recovery is real but fragile. With so few animals, Amur leopards have very low genetic diversity, which can lead to inbreeding, fewer surviving cubs and less resilience to disease. In 2015 a wild Amur leopard was found infected with canine distemper, a virus that could spread through such a small population.

Other risks include poaching, new roads and settlements, fires and competition with the larger Siberian (Amur) tiger, which shares the same forests and can kill leopards. A single disaster, such as a disease outbreak or a bad fire year, could still undo years of progress, which is why experts want a second wild population elsewhere.

Amur leopards in zoos and plans for reintroduction

A carefully managed breeding program for Amur leopards has existed in zoos since 1961. In 2011 there were about 170 Amur leopards in zoos worldwide, many in Europe and North America, where breeding is coordinated to keep the population as genetically healthy as possible.

Conservationists have long planned to release zoo-bred leopards, after training at a special center, into the southern Sikhote-Alin mountains of Primorye, where leopards lived until the mid-20th century. Studies suggest coastal forests there could support around 70 adult leopards. For now, protecting the surviving wild population remains the top priority.

How the Amur leopard compares with other leopards

Amur leopards are adapted to winters that can reach −25 °C (−13 °F). Their winter fur grows up to 7 cm (2.8 in) long on the back, and their coat is paler, with larger and more widely spaced rosettes, than in tropical leopards. Males weigh about 32–48 kg (71–106 lb) and females about 25–42.5 kg (55–94 lb). They feed mainly on roe deer, sika deer and wild boar, plus hares and badgers; What do leopards eat? compares their diet with leopards elsewhere. To see where other leopard populations live, read Where do leopards live?.