vlad.tribnet.com / Issue #595 / Environment / Reading article...

More than 3,000 drawings of the Amur leopard residing in the Far East of Russia were submitted by German children this year to the World Wildlife Fund’s branch in Berlin working with Russian projects to raise concern for preserving the big cats. The best paintings were brought to Vladivostok to join the works of Russian and Chinese children.

WWF’s ‘Young Panda’ movement for German children announced the contest this April for children 5 to 14 years old. “We just asked them to help us draw the leopard and show people in Russia who are concerned about these animals that the whole world is thinking about the problem,” Frank Mörschel, WWF’s coordinator of Russian projects in Germany told reporters in Vladivostok on Wednesday. “We wanted to contribute with our pictures to the exhibition that our Russian colleagues have launched in Primorye, and 3,000 drawings sent a strong message,” he stressed.

The best paintings and the children who drew them were taken in October to the Russian Embassy in Berlin. “They were very impressed with the results of the contest and asked us to send them an official letter explaining the problem so they could try to help,” Mörschel said.

“It is good when children draw leopards, but they cannot save the animals by doing so. However, they can attract officials’ attention to the problem, and the latter can support the environmentalists’ efforts,” Yury Darman, head of WWF’s Far Eastern branch in Russia, reported.

According to him, recent statistics showed a small increase in the population of a big cat – this winter the experts have tracked from 28 to 37 Amur leopards in Primorye region. The wild cats reside in the territory of southern Primorye in three reserves and occasionally visit the neighboring Jilin Province in China. Darman mentioned that in the past five years the Chinese government has considerably increased its ecological efforts.

The Russian government still lacks the power to resolve the issue of establishing a national park in the south of Primorye for Amur Leopards. “The three reserves are currently operated by different organizations which cannot agree on the issue of creating one territory for the leopards,” Darman stated. According to him, Kedrovaya Pad, Barsovy Reserve and Borisovsky Plato Reserve should be unified into a national park granting some 2,000 square meters (21,530 square feet) of territory for the rare cats.

While officials remain in consideration of the problem, the children of Russia, China, America and Germany draw the leopards to demonstrate their care for the spotty cats to the whole world. The motive is to save each one of those left in the wild.