Chasing and Tagging the Rarest Big Cats on Earth

By Michael Frank, Adventure Journal on December 26th, 2011

Russia’s big felines are seriously endangered. There are only 35 Amur leopards left on earth and they occupy a huge range of roughly 8,000 square miles in both remote and wild land in Russia’s far east. BBC Nature rode along on an expedition to track and tag the huge cats, and to study how they get along with Russia’s other rare felines, Amur tigers, which are also incredibly endangered, with fewer than 500 expected to still be in existence. The biggest threats are both intense timber harvesting and poaching: the market for a whole tiger in China is said to exceed $15,000.

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