Heartwarming moment: mother Amur leopard guides cubs across river

A wild Amur leopard family — a female and three cubs — has been recorded by infrared cameras in Heilongjiang province's Dongning city of the China Tiger and Leopard National Park, which stretches across Jilin and Heilongjiang provinces.

This is the first time since monitoring data has been available in Dongning that four leopards have appeared in the same shot.

The video from Nov 7 shows a mother leopard guiding her cubs across a river in the Chaoyanggou Forest Farm in Dongning.

"The cubs are about 1 year old and seem quite healthy," said Li Gang, deputy director of the farm. "The cubs survived the freezing winter because there's plenty of food for them."

Since the park's establishment, the Dongning Forestry Bureau has promoted a series of measures such as clearing traps, cracking down on illegal hunting, and restoring habitats.

As a result, the population of animals such as sika deer, wild boars, and roe deer has significantly increased, and the numbers of wild Siberian tigers and Amur leopards have also been steadily growing.