A trail camera shot a video of a two-year-old female snow leopard in the Sayano-Shushensky Nature Reserve. The cat was born in 2011 and was first recorded by the cameras in late August of the same year. The reserve employees say this is a very active leopard that is often caught on camera.

“You can see that she rubs against a large rock, leaving her marks. The leopard uses this particular rock because it’s a marking point for animals whose routes go through this part of the reserve. This rock serves as a social network for reserve inhabitants,” the employee says.

Animals use marking rocks to leave information about themselves and see who has been there before, including details like species, sex, age, health and even the time and schedule for visiting the site. Researchers believe that “information points” help avoid conflicts between animals. For example, rival animals and predators and their prey will never meet here at the same time.

The trail camera, installed by the marking rock, records various types of animals, but its main job is to detect the snow leopards that live in the nature reserve or who come here in heat.

To date, the nature reserve is equipped with 40 automated cameras, working as both still cameras and video cameras all year. The nature reserve received its latest equipment to study the rare felines with support from the Russian Geographical Society, as part of projects to study and conserve the snow leopard.