A trail camera installed in the Kitoy mountain range on the border between the Republic of Buryatia and the Irkutsk Region has “caught” a snow leopard. The device is owned by the Irkutsk-based Foundation for the Study and Conservation of the Snow Leopard and Rare Mountain Animals.

It is not the first snow leopard recorded by the foundation’s experts in the Eastern Sayan Mountains: in 2015, snow leopards walked near cameras several times in the Munku-Sardyk mountain range and Tunkinsky National Park, but this is the first time a snow leopard was spotted in the Kitoy mountain range. The leopard in the photo is apparently shedding hair, judging by the clumps of hair on its back. So far, it is unclear whether this is a newcomer or one of the leopards that have already been there.

The animal has probably migrated to the Kitoy mountain range from the neighbouring Sayano-Shushensky Biosphere Reserve. Large-scale counts of animal species inhabiting the reserve are conducted constantly by its staff, including within the framework of a programme to study and monitor the snow leopard population. Sponsored by the Russian Geographical Society, the Snow Leopard Programme has been carried out since 2010 under the personal control of President Vladimir Putin, chairman of the Society's Board of Trustees.