On the evening of 23 March, Sayano-Shushensky Biosphere Reserve inspectors saw a snow leopard go hunting. The snow leopard was hunting roe deer in one of the remotest parts of the reserve. These animals, which are in the Red Data Book, have not been spotted on the territory before. Security officers documented the event by taking pictures of the animal’s traces.

According to Viktor Lukarevsky, the reserve’s leading research associate, such behaviour is only characteristic of male snow leopards in transit when on heat. In the mating period, which lasts from the end of February until early May, male snow leopards can move over significant distances in search of females and hunt ungulates and lagomorphs on the way. Such migration is risky so females never leave the territory where they were born and came to maturity.

Snow leopards’ typical habitat is mountain slopes with rocky sections where it is convenient to hunt Siberian mountain goat (the Siberian ibex), their staple prey.