The BRICS member countries will join efforts to preserve rare species of big cats
The Republic of India proposed the creation of an International Alliance of Big Cats in 2023 during the BRICS Leaders' summit in Johannesburg. The call for joint work to further promote the conservation and protection of the most vulnerable feline species was supported by the leaders of the countries at the XVI summit of the association in Kazan.
It should be noted that 4 species of big cats living in Russia are included in the priority list of the national Ecology project. According to the document, the Far Eastern leopard, Amur tiger, Central Asian leopard and snow leopard require the adoption of priority measures for restoration and reintroduction.
The Republic of Tatarstan is actively involved in the conservation of biological diversity. In order to restore the snow leopard grouping, on the initiative of the region, with the support of the Ministry of Natural Resources of the Russian Federation, within the framework of the national Ecology project of the federal project "Conservation of Biological Diversity and Development of Ecological Tourism", a project is being implemented on the territory of the Altai Republic to create a Snow Leopard Center. It will contribute to the accumulation of scientific information on rare and endangered feline species for the conservation and restoration of their populations.
The Center includes a scientific research unit and an aviary complex of the animal husbandry, breeding and study sector. Here it is possible to carry out scientific fundamental and applied research not only to preserve the pure genome of an endangered species, but also to solve further multi-level tasks for the conservation and restoration of their populations.
The work on the creation and scientific component of the Snow Leopard Center is accompanied by the A. N. Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Currently, scientists have developed a program of research activities aimed at improving and introducing methods for the maintenance and reproduction of rare and endangered animal species, as well as working out the main directions of the scientific work of the Center.