AWW! Rare Leopards Born In UK; Worldwide Cuteness Rises
I was looking for a story to post that wasn't gloom, doom, destruction, stupidity, and nakedness, and I happened to see this in the Daily Mail. Being a kitty owner myself, I couldn't resist...meet Argun and Auny, two rare Arun Leopards born in captivity in the UK:
Baby Amur leopards Argun and Anuy were born at the Wildlife Heritage Foundation (WHF), a conservation charity based in Smarden, Kent, which supports rare and endangered big cats.It is thought no more than 40 Amur leopards survive in the wild. [...]
[Mark] Edgerley [who runs the center] said: 'They are like little kittens; they chase straw and if they see a bit of sunlight falling on the ground they will go after that. They look as if they had not got a care in the world.'
He said the cubs are still suckling from their mother but are 'just starting sniffing around and playing with bits of meat and bone'. [...]
The Amur leopard's natural habitat is the Russian Far East, within a forest region known as Primorskii Krai where the River Amur flows.
There the animal is under threat of extinction due to the burning of the forest to make way for agricultural land.
A strategy to increase their numbers is to establish a second population at a separate site by breeding animals in captivity.
There are around 140 Amur leopards living within a carefully managed European breeding programme,
Continued on the next pagewhich the WHF is a part of, but Mr Edgerley said that Argun and Anuy will never be released into the wild.
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