"Ali (Amur Leopard)"

Loss of habitat and poaching have made Amur leopards one of the rarest wild cats on Earth—and the world’s rarest leopard. They have an estimated wild population of around only 130 adult and sub-adult individuals. Conservation efforts are slowly helping wild numbers increase, and there are roughly 300 to 350 Amur leopards housed in zoos and breeding programs globally.

This leopard portrait was created using a technique similar to scratchboard, where the black area is scraped away with sharp tools to reveal the white of the paper beneath.