Interaction between two female Far Eastern leopards has been reported in Land of the Leopard National Park. Two adult wild cats – the mother and her grown-up cub, who has already had her own cubs – are sharing the same area.

A camera trap recorded an adult female leopard (Leo 37F), followed by a young female, Leo 113F, two minutes later. The cats were aware of each other, meaning that they had deliberately decided to share the same area. This overturns the common belief that leopards are solitary animals.

“Although the study of the Far Eastern leopards has been underway for nearly 50 years, we still don’t know everything about relations between these cats. If a trail camera records a male and a female leopard together, we assume that they have come together for mating. But it is the first time that we have registered two female cats living in the same area,” Anna Vitkalova, employee of the research department at Land of the Leopard National Park, said.

She added that these observations were extremely important for science, because they expand our knowledge about the life of Far Eastern leopards, who are very secretive animals and it takes much time and effort to study their behaviour.

Researchers Viktor Korkishko and Dmitry Pikunov first reported interaction between adult female leopards in the Kedrovaya Pad Nature Reserve in the 1970s and 1980s, when two adult females, both of them with cubs, shared the same area. One of them nursed the cubs, while the other cat, the “owner” of the area, went hunting and later led the group to her prey. The researchers assumed and subsequently proved that the cats were relatives.