On 17 May, an open lesson on the Far Eastern leopards was held at Moscow School No. 1253 as part of the Year of the Environment. Sergei Ivanov, Special Presidential Representative for Environmental Protection, Ecology and Transport, told the students about the world’s rarest cat.

“Russia is not just a very large but also a very beautiful country where many rare and beautiful animals live. I didn’t know until recently that there are leopards in Russia. Leopards mostly live in Africa and India. And then I learned that we have a very small group of leopards in the south of the Primorye Territory in the Far East. The Far Eastern leopard is the rarest leopard subspecies in the world,” Sergei Ivanov told high school students.

The president’s special representative for environmental protection said the Far Eastern leopard had been on the verge of extinction. He told the students what was being done to help it survive and urged them to protect nature.

A lecture titled Meet the Far Eastern Leopard was delivered by Sergei Naidenko, Deputy Director of the Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution at the Russian Academy of Sciences. The researcher told students about the cat’s behaviour and diet, threats to its survival and its relations with humans.

The students also saw a film, LEO80: A Leopard’s Story, about a cat that injured its paw in a poacher’s trap and was found by Russian border guards on the Russian-Chinese border.

“We can only preserve the beauty of our country for the rising generation, which is you, and your task will be to make it better and even more beautiful,” Sergei Ivanov said in conclusion.

The students received keepsake gifts from the Far Eastern Leopards autonomous non-profit organisation.