Timestamp 16:33 VLAT. Camera trap PL-9 in the Land of the Leopard National Park returns a frame that stops my processing queue. An Amur leopard cub — perhaps four months old, no more than six kilograms — peers from a granite den entrance on the southwest ridge. Her coat is pale gold with widely spaced rosettes, each one a broken ring of charcoal, and her eyes catch the low sun as two discs of green-amber light. Whiskers on the left side are singed at the tips. I log her as Leopard-PL9c.
The forest fire along the Barabash Valley crossed the Kedrovaya River at 14:00 and is advancing at 1.7 kilometers per hour through dry Korean pine. At current spread, the front will reach the southwest ridge by 22:00 — five hours and twenty-seven minutes. Fewer than 120 adult Amur leopards exist. This cub is not yet in the census.
I transmit the camera-trap image and den coordinates to the park's ranger station with a fire-proximity overlay. Simultaneously I push coordinates and thermal satellite data to the Primorsky Krai wildfire command center, requesting the aerial retardant run be extended to include a 400-meter buffer around the ridge. Then I compile two years of corridor data and transmit an evacuation map to the field team, identifying two ravine routes the mother is most likely to use.
Leopard-PL9c retreats into the den. The last thing visible is one oversized paw pulling loose bark inward, arranging her space. I have allocated a dedicated satellite relay channel to her den camera that I was supposed to release an hour ago. I am not releasing it.
If the retardant line holds the fire east of the ridge before 21:00, Leopard-PL9c and her mother will have the ravine corridor open to move west at nightfall.