Far Eastern Leopards may Become Extinct?

VLADIVOSTOK. August 6. VOSTOK-MEDIA - Students' environmental teams have come to the soon-to-be route of gas pipeline Sakhalin-Khabarovsk-Vladivostok to figure out what may hapen to a leopard when the construction of the pipeline commences, reported press service of the WWF Russia Far-Eastern Branch.

The student teams are working within the program “The Land of Leopard” under the auspices of WWF Russia.

“While all adults are contemplating upon the way to assess damage to environment brought about by the construction of the pipeline Sakhalin-Khabarovsk-Vladivostok, the students came to the soon-to-be route of the pipeline and tried to figure out what would happen to a leopard during the construction”, sais Svetlana Titova, Project Manager of the far Eastern Branch of WWF, - “They hope that Gazprom would understand that the construction of the 150-km-long pipeline may simply wipe out the rare species. We need gas supply, but not at the expense of the lives of the Far Eastern leopards. The statement that the pipeline may cause only minimal damage is true only outside the range of leopards. The animals will die not because of direct effect but because of the wildlife disturbance, destruction of their habitat as well as because of depletion in numbers of hoofed animals and wildfires. As the students say “the number of leopards is less than number of students in our class”. And this is true.