For the first time, scientists will describe the detailed demographics of the Far Eastern leopard
The joint work with Indian scientists was carried out by the researchers of the Land of the Leopard Din Matyukhin and Taisiya Marchenkova. The working visit was devoted to the development of new scientific methods that will help in the further study of the leopard. Specialists study in detail the features of population growth and issues of its internal dynamics on the basis of long-term data. For the first time for the Far Eastern leopard, we analyzed such demographic indicators as population growth, survival characteristics, replenishment and turnover of individuals in the population. The same population indicators were first obtained for the Amur tiger, said Taisia Marchenkova, a researcher at the Land of the Leopard FSBI.
For nine years of photomonitoring, scientists of the Land of the Leopard have accumulated a huge amount of material that impressed their Indian colleagues. This sample allows to obtain reliable data on the demographic processes in the populations of large cats. The first steps have already been taken in a new direction, the results will be published after a long study.
The issue of the territorial distribution of leopards was considered separately. The study examined the interaction of these cats with tigers, which are larger predators. It has been confirmed that the leopard does not avoid the Amur tiger even in areas where there are many striped predators. There is an increasing amount of data on the relationship between tiger and leopard.
Earlier, we conducted a large-scale study on the interspecies relationship between the two predator species, in particular, the mutual use of habitats. Then our results showed that the coexistence of tiger and leopard in the same territory is achieved due to differences in resource use, and female leopards with offspring are registered in places with a high concentration of Amur tiger. However, since then, the number of tigers in the national park has almost doubled, so it became necessary to consider this issue using current photo monitoring data and new statistical processing methods. The latest results showed that today the picture has not changed significantly, said Dina Matyukhin, senior researcher at the Land of the Leopard FSBI.
Lands of the Leopard scientists have mastered new methods of processing data from camera traps. The largest photo monitoring network in Russia is located on the territories of the Land of the Leopard: more than 400 automatic forest cameras bring valuable data on the Far Eastern leopard and the Amur tiger. New methods will help optimize the work of Russian specialists with thousands of unique photos.
The Far Eastern leopard is the rarest big cat in the world. At the beginning of the XXI century, there were only 35 of them in the wild. However, after the creation of the Land of the Leopard National Park in 2012, the number of the beast began to grow. Today, 125 wild Far Eastern leopards live in southwestern Primorye. Also here is the highest density of the Amur tiger with 58 adults.
Source: Land of the Leopard National Park.
