Employees of animal protection and science departments of Sailyugemsky National Park took photos and filmed videos of several snow leopards. Biological material, collected at places where the leopards were sighted, will be sent to a laboratory for subsequent DNA profiling.

“The research project was launched in February 2015. We used standard methods for studying snow leopards. After completing our research, we installed camera traps along presumed snow leopard migration routes. It took us less than a month to photograph the first snow leopards. We took four photos of a snow leopard at different times. So far, it’s hard to say whether we have taken photos of one or two snow leopards,” the park’s researcher, Alexei Kuzhlekov, said, commenting on his photos.

Igor Ivanitsky, the head of the national park’s Animal Protection Department, has sighted two snow leopards with a group of state inspectors, and said their migration routes were well known. “By mounting camera traps in areas where snow leopard tracks were detected, we eventually came across this location. The video clearly shows a snow leopard leaving scratch marks. This appears to be his main migration route.”

Sergei Spitsyn, a senior researcher at the Altai Reserve, said it was possible to talk about three snow leopards that have been photographed by camera traps. The video shows two of them, with obvious tail pattern differences.

Currently, the park’s researchers and their colleagues from the Altai Reserve are comparing these snow leopard photos with those listed in the database.