The cubs were born on July 30 in a pair of leopards Filou and Shiva, who were brought from Sweden at the end of last year. During the vaccination of two-month-old babies of the Central Asian leopard, they weighed and determined their sex.
«Today, a very important event has happened in the life of 2-month-old cubs. In preparation for release into the wild, as well as in order to comply with veterinary requirements, they were routinely vaccinated. The sex was also determined - a male and a female, weighing five and a half kilogram each,» said Nikolai Voronin, head of the Leopard Restoration Center in the Caucasus.
The vaccination procedure is accompanied by the separation of the cubs from their mothers, their capture, isolation, psychological and physical stress. All these factors leave a rather serious imprint on animals and exacerbate the fear of humans inherent in them genetically. The drug is used to vaccinate felines against calcivirosis, panleukopenia, rhinotracheitis by injection into the withers of the animal.
The cubs will stay in the Center until 2-3 years of age, depending on the degree of development of individual programs of preparation for release. Then they will pass a series of examination tests and, based on their results, a decision will be made on their release into the wild.
The program for the reintroduction of the Central Asian leopard is a unique and only project in our country to return a completely extinct cat population to the wild. The Caucasus Leopard Recovery Center was established in 2009. Over the years, 23 cubs were born at the Center, 10 of them were released into the wild.
