Specialists from Land of the Leopard National Park have initiated a new phase of a project to use trail cameras to monitor the population of animals living in the park, including Amur tigers and Far Eastern leopards. Over 350 motion-sensor cameras will be installed to monitor an area of 360,000 hectares at one time for three months.

The project will allow the specialists to track changes in the tiger and leopard populations, identify their habitats and get new data on their behavourial patterns and relationships between individual predators.

“Studying and monitoring the only surviving Far Eastern leopard population and the group of Amur tigers living in the southwest of the Primorye Territory is our top priority,” said Viktor Storozhuk, an engineer and researcher at the park’s research department. “Our team is small but consists of top-notch specialists who are devoted to what they are doing. We also have special equipment, which is important, given that we are working in the harsh conditions in southwest Primorye Territory.”

Trail cameras to monitor animal populations at the national park have been widely used since 2013.