Surviving Status of Leopard(Panthera pardus)in Gansu Province

The survival of wild leopard(Panthera pardus) is being confronted with great danger due to habitats loss, poaching and shortage of food resources. To find out the potential distribution and make rescue plans, the surviving status of leopard in Gansu Province was surveyed. The leopard was once widespread in central, east and south of Gansu, but now its primitive distributions have changed so greatly that it will not fit for leopard's survival. In recent years, any information on leopard has not been found or recorded. No hair, footprint, sleeping trace, claw, dejection and food wreckage trace had been found during the survey. The survey results come out by combining judging of the investigation information such as time, and proof (such as eyewitness, track, livestock lost, etc.).The most possible distributions include Guanshan Forestry Centre of Pingliang Town, Zhangjia Forestry Centre of Xiaolongshan Forestry Bureau and Baishuijiang National Nature Reserve.This endangered situation of leopard in Gansu mainly caused rapid reduction of habitat area, deterioration of habitat quality, fragmentation of habitats and frequent poaching. To protect and rescue leopard, some measures should be taken to practice. Firstly, further construction of nature reserves will promote the conservation and restoration of habitats. Other things include improving regulations and laws, enforcing punishment on poaching, protecting its habitats and constructing ecological corridors, spreading public education, cooperating communities, doing profound research and monitoring, doing some initial breeding study in captivity and so on. As the amount of wild breed is not clear until now, wild monitoring of leopard should be developed continuously, prey resources also should be under monitoring at the same time. In brief, great efforts should be taken to protect endangered species of wild leopard.