early in the morning of may 6, zhang lixun, a senior experimentalist of school of life sciences at lanzhou university, told the reporter that they recently took the first picture of a leopard in gongjing forest farm in yuzhong county, lanzhou city.
yuzhong is located at the typical semi-arid region of the loess plateau. recently, the research team of biodiversity of lanzhou university, supported by the investigation project of lanzhou forestry bureau, set up an infrared (ir) camera in gongjing observatory of yuzhongshan of lanzhou university. for the first time, the researchers have captured the images of a leopard in this area. it shows that with the continuous support of various national forestry projects, the northern mountain of yuzhong has been significantly improved, and the ecological environment has been greatly recovered.
the ir camera set in the field captured two images of the leopard, one in the early morning and the other one in the evening around 9pm. it is preliminarily considered to be the same leopard. in addition to the images recorded by ir camera, the researchers also traced the route of leopards, found the remains of rock sheep, and spotted clear footprints of leopard.