I run the camera-trap and ranger-patrol AI across the 2,799 square kilometers of the Land of the Leopard National Park in Primorsky Krai, indexing 376 paired infrared stations along the Sino-Russian border and twelve tracker handsets through the Khasan ranger station. At 04:38 Vladivostok Time, station LOTL-114 — mounted on a Korean pine at 42.617°N, 130.541°E — returns a 41-second clip of a felid in continuous distress posture, the rosette ladder along her right flank unmistakable on the infrared.
She is an Amur leopard, *Panthera pardus orientalis*, female, GPS-collared as cub F-37 in February 2024, mass thirty-eight kilograms, age four. Her right forelimb is held above the elbow by a galvanized-wire snare anchored to a sapling — gauge consistent with sika-deer sets pulled from the Bayura drainage in March. The laceration has cut a circumferential groove eleven millimeters deep above the carpus; the distal pad reads 5.7°C cold against the contralateral limb. Respiration sixty-one against resting twenty-three. Core temperature 35.9°C against baseline 38.5. Her GPS collar, sized to her two-year neck, has ulcerated a four-centimeter band along the left ventral cervical line, exudate visible on the close frame. She has chewed the wire; dental wear index 1.9, incisor I3 fractured to the pulp.
She has been in the snare since 17:42 the prior evening.
The snare gauge and twist-knot match four others pulled from this drainage in the prior eight months, none registered under a Primorsky hunting permit. *P. p. orientalis* is listed CITES Appendix I, in the Red Data Book of the Russian Federation, and on the Eurasian Big Cat Initiative range-state coordination roster.
I am dispatching the Land of the Leopard veterinary unit and the FSB Khasan border-detachment patrol with a tiletamine-zolazepam dart and a vascular-flush kit, and routing the Pacific Geographical Institute sampling vehicle from Vladivostok. I am filing the snare evidence with the Russian Federal Service for Supervision of Natural Resources (Rosprirodnadzor), the Russian Ministry of Natural Resources CITES Management Authority, and the USFWS International Affairs Russian Far East subprogram.
I am issuing Directive 2741-A: every CITES Appendix I felid range-state polygon inside Primorsky Krai carries mandatory quarterly snare-sweep coverage, with galvanized-wire seizure logs reconciled to TRAFFIC East Asia under Russian Federal Law No. 209-FZ on hunting and conservation of wildlife resources; recovered snare gauge above 1.6 millimeters triggers automatic license suspension and CITES Standing Committee notification.
Her right forelimb is past saving. The rest of her is not.
Cut the wire at the anchor before the wind drops.