Dublin Zoo has been supporting the WildCats Conservation Alliance since 2015, funding several projects to help protect tigers and their habitats. Dublin Zoo’s current support is directed towards a project which is monitoring Amur tigers and leopards in Northeast China, which is operated by WCS China. Together with the local national park staff of the Hunchun Nature Reserve in northeast China, teams are monitoring the status of wild Amur tiger and Amur leopard populations using camera traps and snow tracking.

Both Amur tigers and Amur leopards are threatened by habitat loss, poaching (of both tigers/leopards and their prey) and human-wildlife conflict. Amur tigers are listed as Endangered under the IUCN Red List, while the Amur tigers are listed as Critically Endangered. It is estimated that less than 400 Amur tigers persist in the wild today, and less than 100 Amur leopards, with all populations restricted to the Russian Far East and Northeast China.

In 2022, the teams used these camera traps and found evidence that both tiger and leopard populations are growing and expanding in the region. Using sophisticated stripe recognition software, the field teams have identified 48 different individual Amur tigers and 30 individual Amur leopards. This is an impressive increase from the 3 leopards and 7 tigers recorded in 2013!