Vladimir Putin presented Russian Geographical Society grants for 2011 at a meeting of the RGS board of trustees.

A grant for the project "On the Tracks of a Snow Leopard" has been allocated under the nomination "Nature Protection Activities of the Russian Geographical Society.". Its purpose is to finance expeditions to study the migration patterns and life habits of the snow leopard and also to assess the size of its population. "The snow leopard is one of the least studied animals in Russia and we expect to fill this gap with the society's research," Putin noted.

The programme for the study and monitoring of the Irbis (snow leopard) population in southern Siberia kicked off in 2010 and is set to last five years. It is under the personal supervision of Vladimir Putin, chairman of the Russian Geographical Society's board of trustees, with other programmes to study animals from the Red Data Book of the Russian Federation and other important species of Russia's fauna: the Amur (Ussuri) tiger, the belukha (white whale) and the polar bear.