Well, it was captured by camera trap, but “spotted” was a better word for catchier title.
From The Telegraph:
An Amur leopard, also known as a Wild Manchurian leopard, was photographed in a forest in Wangqing county, on the border of Russia and North Korea.
The adult leopard was caught by an automatic infrared camera set up by a researcher from Peking university.
Sun Ge, the researcher, said the photograph had been a stroke of serendipity. “I am actually researching herbivorous animals in three forests around the county, and I had not expected to capture an image of an Amur leopard at all,” he said.
Mr Sun had set up 40 cameras around the forest in the Spring, returning to collect the images every 20 days. The leopard was photographed on September 19.
There are fewer than 50 Amur leopards (Panthera pardus orientalis) left living in the wild, almost all of them in Russia. The cat is classified as technically extinct in China, although there could be around ten of them roaming the Sino-Siberian border.
In the winter, Amur leopards grow three-inch long fur and their pelts have been highly prized by poachers. They also have longer legs, probably for padding through thick snow. Adult males can weigh up to 165lbs.
Jiang Changshun, a professor at China’s Northeast Forestry University and a senior official with the World Wildlife Fund’s tiger and leopard department, said that for the past two years, footprints of several Amur leopards had been spotted in the snow and mud in forests in the east of Jilin province.
“We cannot tell what the leopard was doing in Wangqing forest from the photograph, but we are pretty sure that there are other leopards also in this forest. They usually live with a family.
“Further research now needs to be done on whether these cats have been native to China or whether they have come over the border from Russia.”
Mr Jiang said there was a hope that there could be larger numbers of Amur leopards in China, but that there has been little research on the breed in recent years. Instead, he said the majority of research had been concentrated on tigers.
Chinese officials have immediately moved to establish a national nature reserve around the Wangqing forest, in order to protect the area.
In the UK, Colchester zoo has a breeding pair of Amur leopards.
The Amur leopard is considered most endangered subspecies of big cat.
Its range is roughly in the middle of that of the Amur (Siberian) tiger, which is also quite critically endangered.
Both the Amur leopard and Amur tiger will eat dogs. In fact, Amur tigers will avoid people at all costs– except to sneak up and take the dog walking beside a hunter.
