Experts from Land of the Leopard, with the support of the Far Eastern Leopards autonomous non-profit organisation, have begun creating a photo monitoring network to document Far Eastern leopards in the Ussuri Nature Reserve. Camera traps will spot migrating large cats and also detect those relocated there under the reintroduction programme.

The Komarov Ussuri State Nature Reserve passed under the control of the Russian Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment and under the management of Land of the Leopard in 2021. Its territory could potentially become a site for for the resettlement and reintroduction of Far Eastern leopards. At the end of last year, the first leopards were spotted in the area between Land of the Leopard National Park and the Ussuri Reserve, which suggests there is a chance of the big cats naturally migrating between the two protected areas. To watch the potential migration corridors, five photo monitoring stations were installed in January 2022, near the village of Alekseyevka.

This year, with the support of the Far Eastern Leopards autonomous non-profit organisation, 30 monitoring stations containing 60 camera traps with motion detectors will be installed in the nature reserve. The installation has already begun.

“Photo monitoring in the Ussuri Nature Reserve will be used to watch leopards that can migrate here from Land of the Leopard National Park. In the future, these stations will be used to monitor the Far Eastern leopards that will be moved here under the reintroduction programme, which is to be launched in the next few years,” said Land of the Leopard director Viktor Bardyuk.

It is expected that the Far Eastern leopard reintroduction programme will be launched in 2023 as part of the trilateral agreement between Land of the Leopard, the Far Eastern Leopards autonomous non-profit organisation and the Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution at the Russian Academy of Sciences. As part of the programme, several leopards may be caught in Land of the Leopard National Park and relocated to the Ussuri Nature Reserve in order to expand the habitat of the rare cat and provide more opportunities for population growth.