CHANGCHUN, Nov. 23 (Xinhua) -- Authorities in northeast China have started a five-month campaign against poaching as China enhances the protection of endangered Siberian tigers and Amur leopards.
The management bureau of Northeast China Tiger and Leopard National Park launched the campaign in areas of Wangqing in Jilin Province, and Suiyang in Heilongjiang Province. The campaign will see local authorities patrol the park and the neighboring area, and clear traps set by poachers.
Poachers place traps or wires in forests, posing threats to not only tigers and leopards but also their prey, which has led to a food shortage for the endangered species.
In the campaign that will last until late April, multiple departments will also make joint efforts to crack down on illegal trading and transportation of wild animals and wildlife products.
In 2017, China launched a pilot national park project for Siberian tigers and Amur leopards, spanning an area of over 1.46 million hectares in the provinces of Jilin and Heilongjiang.
Over the past three years, the bureau has patrolled almost the entire area of the park. A total of 67 poaching cases were busted, with 84 suspects nabbed. The bureau has seen tiger and leopard species expanding their habitats to the heartland of the pilot zone, as the quantity of their prey has doubled with more diverse species, according to the bureau.
Siberian tigers, otherwise known as Amur or Manchurian tigers, mainly live in eastern Russia, northeast China and the northern part of the Korean Peninsula.
Amur leopards, also known as the Far Eastern leopard, are one of the most endangered felines in the world, and have been listed as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Enditem