North Chinese Leopard (Panthera pardus japonensis)

[Ngala]

Leopards of Northern China - PART 1
By Song Dazhao
Photographs by Song Dazhao & Wang Buping
Translated by Trevor Padgett(CAN)

The Taihang Mountain Range is a sprawling stretch of rugged geography running almost 400 kilometers down the northeastern edge of China. From afar, they appear covered in green but the continued fragmentation of their coniferous forests has brought the survival of the region’s most mysterious creature, the North Chinese leopard, into question. Found only in this region, it is estimated that there are less than 2000 individuals left in the wild. Volunteer zoologists with the Chinese Felid Conservation Alliance (CFCA), driven by their passion for the understanding and conservation of these leopards, have delved into the remaining untouched land in an attempt to understand these magnificent creatures– while there is still time.

Summer is about to end and a lonely North Chinese leopard wanders slowly along the mountain path, patrolling his territory. Soon, to live through the coming winter, it will have to start hunting frequently to store enough body fat and energy.

*This image is copyright of its original author

Leopard–the mere mention of the word is likely to rouse images in people’s minds of both majesty and ferocity: an august snow leopard pacing through the Himalayan alpine, a clouded leopard silently stalking its prey in the underbrush or a sleek jaguar weaving its way through dark and humid lowland forests. However, while closely related to these, the true leopard is actually a separate species called Panthera pardus. Evolving in Africa some eight hundred thousand years ago and radiating out across Asia, it is now one of the most common of the ‘big cats.’ Fierce and beautiful, alert and mysterious, the leopard is an opportunist – an apex predator that will feed on almost anything. Nothing, from the smallest rodent to the largest ungulate, is safe when a leopard is hungry. It seems that their prey is anything that moves.

Despite the varied diet and their seat atop the food chain, leopards are struggling. And, compared with other Pantherinae – a taxonomical nesting of these big cats that includes tigers, lions, snow leopards, clouded leopards, jaguars, and leopards, all of which are experiencing population declines –leopards have perhaps suffered most of all. A figurative (though unfortunately sometimes literal) slaughter of leopards over the past few decades has led to a heartbreaking decline in their population. Hunted for their fur, in retaliation by farmers, or for traditional medicine, and because of the encroachment of humans into their territory and the resulting loss of habitat, leopard populations are being whittled down. This imbalance has pressed leopards to the limit and, while hunting and habitat loss continue to wreak havoc, their ecology and population numbers remain a dark secret known only to the cats and the forest. To date, more than half of the global leopard population has disappeared from their natural habitat. Despite this loss, their land continues – legally – to be dissected by roads and dug up for its mineral wealth, and it seems that nobody is guarding the interests of the leopard. Conservation biologists fear that leopards are sneaking away to extinction in obscurity.

Quit to Begin: My Personal Quest to Know the Leopard
Recent genetic analysis currently separates leopards into nine sub-species. These are nine groups of the same Panthera pardus species that are different enough to be different, but not different enough to be their own species. Not yet, at least, because the evolutionary pressures that have pried them away from their ancestral leopard are still at work. If time and nature permit, these sub-species themselves could one day become unique leopard species.

These nine sub-species are strewn across both Africa and Eurasia, and four of them can be found within China. Together, their combined habitat once occupied more than half of the entire Chinese territory. However, in the last three decades, a stunning realization surfaced that rocked conservationist biologists. The leopards are gone; it appears that the land of the leopards is missing its leopards. For over thirty years almost nobody – researcher, farmer, hiker, road worker, miner, tourist, or forester alike –reported a credible sighting of a leopard. Tracks in the mud or snow, scat, or kill sights are absent, and populations of their prey are starting to rise. Not only are leopards missing, also their ecosystems are starting show the negative ramifications of this loss.

In China, the North Chinese leopard is more often known as a “golden coin leopard.”“Golden” refers to its fulvous fur and “coin” comes from its black spotted patterns that are similar to copper coins circulated in ancient China.

*This image is copyright of its original author

As desperate as this seems, out the darkness comes hope: recent wildlife surveys in the Taihang, Liupan and the Qinling Mountains, as well as reports from more distant and forgotten recesses of China’s deep mountainous regions, have provided reliable evidence that one of these sub-species, the North Chinese (Panthera pardus japonensis),is still present. There is evidence that a straggling remnant of a once mighty (and the only sub-species that is actually endemic to China) population exists.

Though the North Chinese leopard has been imperiled for some time, it was less than a decade ago that it became a fixture in my life. And, as fixtures are wont to do, leopards have remained as my focal point over the intervening years. Growing up in China, I became accustomed to the stories of wild leopards roaming the rocky ridges and forested valleys of places unknown. But I, like those who passed the stories along, had never actually seen one or even had the opportunity to hope to do so because they were animals inhabiting a far-off land I could never reach.

Then, in 2008, everything changed. Though I lacked any actual wildlife ecology skills, I jumped at an opportunity to volunteer with a team of environmentalists as they ventured out into the wilds of Shanxi in search of the mighty and mystical North Chinese leopard. It was a fruitful trip, too. To this day, I get shivers remembering the moment I saw my first leopard print. It was fresh and clear, a perfect impression set upon the dark muddy soil. Until that moment, the leopard had only been a thing of daytime television and stories handed down by generations of people who had never seen one.

Leopards live in Asia, Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, which seems to be a vast habitat, but the fact is that this distribution map is only an optimistic estimate. Take the North Chinese leopard (one subspecies of leopard) as an example. Due to excessive hunting, its natural population has declined drastically since the 1960s.

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

After that initial contact, I was determined to find more. In the following years, I returned many times to the same region, spending all my vacation time in search of the elusive North Chinese leopard. Initially armed only with binoculars and a notebook, I later entered the leopard’s world armed with infrared camera traps. What the camera traps revealed was not just the cold and sparse evergreen forest that I saw during my leopard quests, rather it was a living ecosystem. The memory cards filled with images of roe deer, red foxes, ocelots and other smaller animals too numerous to list and, to my delight, two leopards! The forest was alive. What was hidden from our human eyes was vibrantly displayed through the silent eyes of the camera traps. More importantly, I had a fugitive. Before I had only a print and now I had a face to the print.

I allowed my growing obsession to pull me to the Taihang Mountains repeatedly over the years, until one spring morning that I will never forget. I woke with clarity and determination, knowing that what had been festering in my mind for some time was finally too strong to ignore: holiday excursions would never satiate my desires, nor would they be able to provide tangible help to the leopards. So, I quit. In a rash move that sealed our fates even closer, I left my job and everything I knew behind and worked to establish the Chinese Felid Conservation Alliance (CFCA), which has since taken a leading role in the research and conservation of the North Chinese leopard.

Continues later.......... Reply