As of early 2022, 41 adult Amur tigers were recorded at Land of the Leopard National Park. The data was collected during a count of Amur tigers throughout their entire habitat by recording their tracks on the snow. In February 2022, Land of the Leopard National Park in Russia’s Far East was the venue for the winter-time tiger count. Similar counts were conducted in Kedrovaya Pad State Biosphere Reserve and Ussuri Nature Reserve.

Experts conducted the count at Land of the Leopard following snowfalls on protected territories. The three-day fieldwork project involved over 40 members of staff. They studied the entire territory of Land of the Leopard, Kedrovaya Pad State Biosphere Reserve and Ussuri Nature Reserve or 328,000 hectares. They moved on foot and also used all-terrain vehicles in the rugged terrain.

“Full-scale tiger counts aim to record the tracks of Amur tigers and those of hoofed animals, their main prey. We recorded the tracks of other predators. Of course, for us, the leopard tracks were the priority. Apart from the tiger count on protected areas in the southwestern Primorye Territory, we counted Far Eastern leopards, the rarest big feline worldwide. We will systematise our data and include it in the state environmental monitoring survey covering animal populations at Land of the Leopard,” said National Park’s director Viktor Bardyuk.

The total Amur tiger count is organised and conducted by the Russian Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, the governments of the Primorye and Khabarovsk territories, the Jewish Autonomous Region and the Amur Region, as well as at reserves and national parks with the support of the Amur Tiger Centre and the Russian Academy of Sciences.