Rare leopards kept out-of-sight at Kincraig to boost survival hopes

Keepers at the Highland Wildlife Park have unveiled the work they have been doing behind the scenes to help the rarest big cat in the world - the Amur leopard. Construction recently finished on a large-scale facility that encloses a portion of the Highland habitat - that despite its high profile inhabitants, won't be on show to visitors.

Douglas Richardson, Head of Living Collections, Highland Wildlife Park said: “A specially designed, off-show, breeding complex for Amur leopard is now complete and it was made possible due to a very generous anonymous donation. As the Park has large, undeveloped areas, it gave us the opportunity to build an extensive leopard facility allowing us to produce and rear cubs that were not familiar with humans, making them directly eligible for the Russian reintroduction project.”

Highland Wildlife Park focuses on cold weather adapted species and has had notable breeding success with a range of threatened carnivores and the addition of Amur leopards intends to build on that success. The male, Freddo, was born in Tallinn Zoo in Estonia and the female, Arina, was born at Twycross Zoo in the Midlands; both were born in 2014.

“If our leopards produce and rear cubs this year, we could be in a position to return cats to Russia by mid to late 2018, which is very exciting as our approach will dramatically abbreviate the reintroduction process. Our Amur leopards will never be on show to our visitors but we hope to create an information hub that will explain all about this exciting conservation project and hopefully educate people about the plight of these animals.”

Although now better protected, the population of Amur leopards is less than 70 remaining in the wild. Classed as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List they had been illegally hunted for their coat and other body parts for the traditional medicine trade. The proposed release site is now completely devoid of leopards and so the reintroduction project hopes to return the leopard to this part of their historical range.