North Chinese Leopard (Panthera pardus japonensis)

[Ngala]

Leopards of Northern China - PART 2
By Song Dazhao
Photographs by Song Dazhao & Wang Buping
Translated by Trevor Padgett(CAN)

King of the Mountains
In all the places that leopards are found – from Africa to Asia – they are renowned as vicious hunters.

A terrace-like array of cliffs girdles the sides of the Taihang Mountains. Covered with tall grass and largely treeless, it is along the tops of these cliff that the North Chinese leopards do their hunting. There, settled within the tall grass of the flat cliff edges, they lie in wait for their next meal to wander by.

Volunteers from the CFCA (Chinese Felid Conservation Alliance) use infrared camera traps to monitor population status and behavior of North Chinese leopards. Photo No.1 shows a young female and in Photo No.2 there is another female accompanied by her cub. Every adult leopard has its own territory: a female usually occupies several dozens of square kilometers while a male owns a larger place of over 100 square kilometers.

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

For the North Chinese leopard, their next meal usually comes in the form of roe deer. This species of deer is commonly found within the same grassy terraced cliffs and is a stable food source for the leopards. But, being opportunists, it is not only deer that sustain the leopards; wild boar and hares have also been known to find their way on to the leopard’s dinner plate. Most of this information comes directly from images taken with the infrared video cameras we mounted throughout their range. These images tell stories. They have shown leopards stalking wild boar and, interestingly, in many cases it seems that the boars are acutely aware of the leopard’s presence but do not flee in defense. The leopards are not stalking the boar as much as they are following them. Though both predator and prey are aware of each other, there is rarely evidence of a pursuit, or of a violent attack that would be expected from leopards of the savannah. They appear to follow the valley instead, boar then leopard, as if partners on their own excursion, ignoring the evolutionary algorithm that should tell the leopard to attack and the boar to flee.

In Shanxi, the decline of North Chinese leopard’s population was caused by habitat loss and fragmentation. In those limited habitats that remain intact, leopards usually show up on the southern slopes of the mountains because these places provide wide vistas for hunting.

*This image is copyright of its original author

Like so much of the life of the North Chinese leopard, this phenomenon was previously unknown. Another empty page in the conservation biologist’s notebook was: what are they doing? It was not until my colleagues and I walked into those deep valleys that slice through the Taihang Mountains and came across two pieces of evidence that we finally had an answer: a dead end and a boar carcass. Though the leopards may be pressed by the trimmings of evolution to pounce and to kill, here their ways have been updated by Taihang topography. Charging and chasing an animal in such rugged terrain, despite the flat savannah-like cliff tops, takes energy and is rife with opportunities for injury. In comparison, a leisurely stroll with a boar to the dead end of a valley is somewhat of a free lunch. Patience trumps ambush, as the leopards follow their prey into a corner and then attack the helpless boar. This works, of course, only until the boars catch on.

However, the North Chinese leopard is not all patience and strategy. When their prey is startled or when the geography does not lend itself to entrapment, their stalking turns to attack. Often found perched upon the edge of the terraced cliffs, when a roe deer or boar makes it was along a lower terrace, the leopard reacts with immediate, yet controlled, violence. It may stay seated and wait for its prey to approach or it may choose to slowly slink behind its prey and then pounce. Comparing these hunting habits to that of their savannah-born cousins, perhaps the differences are not so striking. African leopards have been known to climb trees and sit motionless with complete patience until an animal wanders by below. Then they do just what the pouncing North Chinese leopards do – they jump from a height and surprise the prey. On the savannah, it is a tree and, in China, it is a cliff’s edge, but in both cases it is a vicious vertical assault, meaning that perhaps these sub-species are more alike than we realize.

Spring is the time when farmers start to herd their cattle in the mountains. North Chinese leopards do not risk attacking adult cattle; they prey on those inexperienced, defenseless calves instead.

*This image is copyright of its original author

This similarity can be seen not only in their hunting strategies, but also in their post-kill habits. In the savannah, leopards face intense competition for their kills from both lions and hyenas. To protect their hard earned meal, they carry their meal up a tree and consume it in relative peace. Tucked away in the Taihang Mountains, in the northeast of China, there are no lions or hyenas to compete for fresh kills. Here, the leopards are top of the food chain but they are not without their annoyances – not all top predators are left alone to eat in peace. Though lacking lions and hyenas, both of which will happily scavenge a freshly killed meal instead of hunting for one themselves, here there are a host of birds, particularly red-billed magpies, which play scavenger. So, while the North Chinese leopard sometimes eats its kill out in the open, if magpies become bothersome, they retreat, just, like their savannah cousins, to protected ground. In the Taihang Mountains, this means heading up a small tree, to a rock overhang, or eating within a thicket of brush at the forest edge.

In Shanxi and Hebei provinces, North Chinese leopards were hunted due to their threat to livestock. For local people, these big cats are as dangerous as wolves.

*This image is copyright of its original author

Though we have learned the leopard’s habits over the course of many expeditions, we still find ourselves at a loss as to how they survive. The Taihang Mountains are a vast region and the leopards seem to be squeezed out of the forest to the grassy terrace cliffs. Thought they provide adequate hunting topography, these terraces are only slivers of land within the massive matrix of the Taihang Mountains. It is immediately obvious that the North Chinese leopard habitat is not the Taihang Mountains, but rather these terraces – a habitat within the Taihang Mountains. Sequestered on these terraces, the survival of such a large predatory cat in this limited habitat raises countless questions that we are only beginning to be able to answer.

Continues later..........  Reply