Amur leopards are critically endangered from deforestation, poaching & trading, prey scarcity and more. It is poached largely for its beautiful, spotted fur. In 1999, an undercover investigation team recovered a female and a male Amur leopard skin, which were being sold for $500 and $1,000 respectively in the village of Barabash, not far from the Kedrovaya Pad reserve in Russia.
Agriculture and villages surround the forests where the leopards live. As a result the forests are relatively accessible, making poaching a problem—not only for the leopards themselves, but also for important prey species, such as roe deer, sika deer and hare, which are hunted by the villagers both for food and cash.
There are still large tracts of suitable habitat left across the Amur in Russia and China. In China the prey base is insufficient to sustain large populations of leopards.
Prey populations will recover if measures are taken to limit the poaching of prey species and the forests are managed for logging more sustainably. For the Amur leopard to survive for the long term, it needs to repopulate its former range. But for that to happen, prey populations need to recover first.
Since they are critically endangered, I think they should be thought of first, and everyone together can only do that much.
If you would like to learn more about the Amur leopards, go to http://www.worldwildlife.org/species/amur-leopard to get more information.
Information from: http://www.worldwildlife.org/species/amur-leopard
