Photostory about ZSL's vets in action in the wild in Russia
ZSL is working in the Russian Far East to help Russian vets set up a programme for monitoring wildlife health. This will help all the endangered species there, and it will also help prepare for a possible reintroduction of Amur leopards from zoos.
There are only about 35 of these beautiful leopards left in the wild in one small area of the Russian Far East. They have longer, paler fur than most leopards, which live in hot places like India or Africa.
ZSL is helping the Wildlife Conservation Society catch wild leopards in Southwest Primorye to check their health status. Here John Lewis of Wildlife Vets Internatonal and Claudia Schoene of ZSL take blood samples from a leopard and give it a thorough health check before it is released, none the worse for its experience.
Meanwhile, over in Lazovsky National Park, more ZSL staff are doing a survey for wildlife diseases, as this is the likely location for the reintroduction and if you're going to release leopards into a new area, you need to be sure they're not going to catch any dangerous diseases.
Russian vet Misha Goncharuk and American wildlife biologist Linda Kerley have set box traps for small carnivores around the reserve and check them regularly. This one has caught an Amur leopard cat (not the same as an Amur leopard, much smaller!)
With the cat safely under general anaesthetic, the team take a blood sample. This will be taken to the project lab in order to check for a range of diseases.
They also check each animal for general health. This leopard cat appears to have lost a toe on one foot.
But its teeth seem to be in excellent shape, bar one missing incisor.
This one is a racoon dog, a common species in the area. As well as finding out about wildlife diseases, we are also helping Misha learn how to care for wildlife - he's getting experience here that will help him become a really good wildlife vet.
All the animals have their temperature checked during the examination to make sure they're stable under the anaesthetic.
And back to the wild ... the anaesthetic has worn off, the animals are fine and the project has a little bit more information to help safeguard Russia's wildlife for the future.
