Conservation strategies for the North China leopard: Establishing effective ecological corridors in Shanxi Province

• The North China Leopard Ecological Corridor needs to avoid densely populated urban areas to reduce human-animal conflicts. • Habitat quality at different levels has a significant impact on biodiversity and can guide the improvement of corridor habitat quality and connectivity. • Incorporate habitat quality into the ecological corridor function assessment system and identify priority conservation areas along the corridor with low habitat quality. • Ecological bottlenecks are critical to biological proliferation, and ecological barriers require improvement of habitat quality and reduction of landscape resistance. Increasing urbanization has resulted in fragmentation and shrinkage of the North China leopard’s habitat, posing a threat to its survival. By establishing ecological corridors, the North China leopard population will be able to recover and stabilize. It is well established that the connectivity of ecological networks is closely related to species dispersal abilities, therefore, the establishment of ecological networks is one of the most important things to do when it comes to the protection of biodiversity. By constructing ecological networks for North China leopards using circuit theory and the least-cost path model, in addition to analyzing ecological corridors and habitat quality in the areas adjacent to these corridors, it is possible to increase the utilization of ecological corridors by North China leopards more effectively. The purpose of this research is to explore the effectiveness of an ecological corridor construction program for the North China leopard, focusing on the distribution area of the North China leopard in Shanxi Province, China. By adopting the proposed approach, it is hoped that the leopard population of North China will be stimulated to recover and stabilize, while the ecosystem will be maintained and conflicts between humans and leopards will be minimized.