CHANGCHUN, Jan. 14 (Xinhua) -- A rare fight between two big cats in the heart of northeast China's dense forests recently hit the headlines on China's social media.

Though details of the clash were initially unknown, the carcass of a robust Amur leopard with multiple bite marks in a snow-covered forest in the city of Hunchun, which is part of the Northeast China Tiger and Leopard National Park, indicated an unusual encounter.

An intelligent monitoring system soon identified the victim as the No. 73 Amur leopard. It was 8 years old and had long mapped out the area as its own territory.

"He was killed in his own home," said Feng Limin, deputy director of the monitoring and research center for Siberian tigers and Amur leopards under the National Forestry and Grassland Administration.

Signs of the fight and animal tracks near the scene combined to reveal the culprit -- an adult male Siberian tiger.

Siberian tigers, also known as Amur tigers, mainly live in Russia's Far East and northeast China. One of the world's most endangered species, about 500 Siberian tigers are believed to be living in the wild.

Amur leopards, also known as Far Eastern leopards, are also among the most endangered felines in the world.

Due to significant differences in body weight, conflict between Siberian tigers and Amur leopards is rare, noted Feng.

He added when the No. 73 leopard first established its territory, there were no other leopards or tigers in the vicinity. With the further recovery of the ecosystem, Amur tigers with higher requirements for living environments began to settle in this area, and with the population of both tigers and leopards increasing, the probability of them clashing has grown.

"I feel very distressed, but this is the law of nature," forest ranger Liu Guoqing told Xinhua in response to the deadly duel, while adding that it is a good sign of ever-expanding populations of these two endangered species.

In the late 1990s, there was only one isolated wild population of 25 to 35 Amur leopards left, and it was distributed in a narrow area across the border between China and Russia, Feng said. "It was just one step away from extinction."

In recent years, with a series of measures implemented to conserve and recover the local ecosystem, China's ecological environment has been significantly improved. Such measures, coupled with the establishment of the Northeast China Tiger and Leopard National Park, have retrieved the Amur leopard from the brink of extinction.

"Nevertheless, the Amur leopard remains even more endangered than the Amur tiger," Feng noted.

On an early morning with a temperature of minus 10 degrees Celsius, Zhao Yan packed some bread and sausage and stepped into the forest without any hesitation.

The forest ranger had loads of errands on his to-do list, including animal feeding, mountain clearing, camera maintenance and more.

The Northeast China Tiger and Leopard National Park where Zhao works spans an area of over 1.4 million hectares and is located in the Chinese provinces of Jilin and Heilongjiang. The park went on trial in 2017 and was officially established in 2021. Over the years, Zhao and his peers have gone out on patrol on more than 60,000 occasions, safeguarding the natural habitat of the animals living in the park.

Apart from the rising populations of Amur tigers and Amur leopards, biodiversity in the park has also witnessed dramatic improvement. According to incomplete statistics, 355 species of terrestrial wild vertebrates are found in the park, including 10 species under China's national first-class protection and 34 species under national second-class protection.

"The story of No. 73 leopard encapsulates the changes in the forest park," said Feng. "Though No. 73 is dead, the place it once lived is still getting better." Enditem

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