The photo traps recently installed in Land of the Leopard National Park have captured video of a Far Eastern leopard in “white gloves” that has since become famous. Contrary to their name, photo traps, or trail cameras, can also take video, though the quality of video is inferior even to amateur cameras. The recording time is limited to one minute. The position of the camera is fixed and cannot follow an object. And at night the infrared flash makes photos and video grey.

“We don’t mind these minor shortcomings because photo traps are primarily used to collect scientific data,” said the park’s Deputy Director for Science and Environmental Education Yelena Salmanova. “We need to be able to clearly see spots in order to identify leopards in videos and photos. But it is also very important to have high-quality video of our rare wild cat in its natural setting so that everyone can marvel at Russia’s leopard. This is the first video we received from photo traps. Usually we don’t switch them to video mode because it drains the battery very quickly. Most traps are installed in places that are difficult to access, and so we can’t change them often. We decided to test the video mode in the Cedar Wood Creek Valley Reserve and we were very lucky – we got a video of a leopard, our star in white gloves!”