The importance of the Narvinskii Pass to these travels came to light more than a decade ago. The Wildlife Conservation Society was funding research then by Linda Kerley and the late Mikhail Borisenko of the Zoological Society of London. They were “actually out trying to track and collect scat for DNA analysis and noticed animals moving repeatedly across this ridge,” said Miquelle. “It’s a really good example of how basic scientific research can help define necessary conservation actions. The work was being done for other purposes, but the tunnel was by far the most valuable outcome of that research.”
According to Miquelle, Ivanov heard about the pass and the threat from the proposed highway. He started to focus on the plight of Amur leopards at about the same time that Putin was adopting the Amur tiger as a favorite cause. Plenty of politicians talk, but Ivanov made things happen, designating Land of the Leopard National Park to protect 1,100 square miles of leopard and tiger habitat in the region in 2011. At the time, the possibility of a tunnel running under the park to separate the big cats from highway traffic was just a topic of discussion. Today it’s an accomplished fact, the price tag (not made public so far) be damned.
