A publication on CDV in a Far Eastern (Amur) leopard co-authored by our ZSL veterinarian in the Russian Far East, Mikhail Goncharuk, in Journal of Wildlife Diseases.
The Far Eastern leopard (Panthera pardus orientalis), also known as the Amur leopard, is one of the most-threatened large felids and is currently classified as Critically Endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN, Stein et al. 2016). Populations formerly extended across northeast China, the Korean Peninsula, and southern Primorskii Krai (province) in the Russian Far East (RFE, Hebblewhite et al. 2011). Habitat modification, prey depletion, and poaching have reduced the Far Eastern leopard to a single subpopulation occupying approximately 7,000 km2 in southwestern Primorskii Krai and neighbouring Jilin province in China (Hebblewhite et al. 2011). With approximately fewer than 60 individuals remaining (Vitkalova and Shevtsova 2016), this genetically impoverished population is at risk from stochastic processes including inbreeding depression, environmental calamities, and disease (Uphyrkina
et al. 2002). Read the full paper.
