Rare and Charming Photos of A Leopard Couple Playing Love Games in A ‘Land of The Leopard’ National Park

Land of the Leopard National Park is a national park in Primorsky Krai in the Russian Far East, covering an area of 2,799 km2 (1,081 sq mi) west of Razdolnaya River. It was established to protect the Amur leopard which was at the time the world’s rarest cat with an estimated population of 30 individuals.

According to the Park Administration: “Old-timer leopard Valera married a young female! At the advanced age of 13, a big cat arranged a date – a camera trap captured the meeting of the rarest leopards in the world and the mating process. Amur leopards, Land of the Leopard National Park, Russian Far East. There are only 110 of them.”

More: Land of The Leopard, Instagram

By the beginning of the 21st century the Amur leopard population was on the verge of extinction. As a result of poaching and fires, the vast habitat of the beast had shrunk to a narrow stripe in the southwest of Primorsky Krai. By then, a Kedrovaya Pad nature reserve and several breeding grounds existed here, but only expansion of the protected area and integrated management of the existing natural territories could solve the problem of conserving the rare cat.

The Land of the Leopard National Park was founded on April 5, 2012, thanks to the efforts of ecologists and personal attention to the problem of Sergey Ivanov, the former Director of the Executive Office of the President of the Russian Federation. Its territory in the area of 262 th. ha has covered the most part of the rare predator’s habitat including the land of Khasansky and Nadezhdinsky Districts of Primorye, the Ussuriysky Urban District, as well as a little part of Vladivostok city.