Specialists of the Caucasian State Natural Biosphere Reserve named after Kh.G. Shaposhnikov found a dead female leopard of the Central Asian leopard, released in the summer on the territory of the reserve.
On October 28, 2020, specialists received an alarm signal from the satellite collar of a female leopard Laba, which transmitted a signal indicating that the animal had been motionless for more than 12 hours. To inspect the leopard on the site the Caucasian Reserve promptly organized the search.
Since the signal source was located in a remote and extremely inaccessible area on the eastern spur of Mount Yatyrgvarta, the search group, in addition to specialists from the Caucasian Reserve, included climbers from the Adygeya search and rescue team of the Russian Emergencies Ministry. For the urgent delivery of the search group, a helicopter with a crew specially trained for work in the mountains was brought in.
On October 29, 2020, the body of a deceased female of the Central Asian leopard was found at the site of the signal transmission. External examination showed no signs of violent death. With the help of a helicopter, the body of the leopard was evacuated, and then transferred to specialists for autopsy and further clarification of the causes of the incident.
The female of the Central Asian leopard Laba was released into the territory of the Caucasus Nature Reserve on August 20, 2020 together with a male named Kodor. The animals were raised and prepared for life in the wild at the Central Asian Leopard Recovery Center in the Caucasus. Before being released into the wild, leopards have been successfully tested for readiness to live in their natural habitat and have repeatedly demonstrated effective hunting skills for all large ungulates in the region (fallow deer, red deer, wild boar), as well as small predators and large rodents.
The released leopards were wearing collars with satellite and VHF, allowing them to continue monitoring and controlling the movement of the animals for a long time without the need for re-tagging. The track of movement was done on the basis of GPS signals, which every two hours transmitted the location of the collar to the specialists of the Institute of Ecology and Evolution named after A.N. Severtsov RAS.
On November 9, 2020, by order of the Ministry of Natural Resources of Russia, a Commission was created to investigate the causes of death of the Central Asian leopard and to develop measures to prevent the death of the rest of the released individuals.
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