The State Forestry Administration has concluded that the animal reported to have killed a cow in a valley in Shulan City on the northern part of Jilin Province was an Amur leopard, a critically endanger leopard subspecies.
Sun Jianmin, the owner of the cow, said that the animal went missing in the evening of Oct. 21. He found the cow's mutilated body not long after.
"I found her whole left hind leg gone with only the bones left," Sun told a local forestry officer. "I guess some kind of monster bit the poor thing because I saw teeth marks," he said.
The forestry officer was not certain as to the exact beast that killed the cow, but opined it was a big cat after finding footprints a few meters away and some scratches on a nearby tree, according to a report on the provincial government's website.
He said that the forestry office was "not sure what it was given that the city hasn't had any big cats in recent years."
When they presented samples of the animal's fur and blood and other pieces of evidence to the State Forestry Agency, it became clear that it was indeed an Amur leopard that was roaming the valley.
Named after the Amur region in eastern Russia, the Amur leopard, also known as Far Eastern leopard, was classified "critically endangered" by the International Union for Conservation of Nature in 1996.
Only about 19-26 of the leopards are still in existence, with about 13 living in Jilin, according to a provincial forestry officer.