A snow leopard in Sailyugem National Park was not scared off by an expedition and did not attempt to hide. Winners of the Following the Snow Leopard nationwide contest were inspecting the areas where trail cameras had been installed when they spotted a snow leopard guarding a wild sheep carcass. Volunteers managed to take photos of the wild cat from 50 metres away.  

Denis Malikov, the national park’s deputy director for science, research and monitoring, suggested that it is the same animal that the trail camera recorded in Bayan-Chagan earlier this May. “This is the grown-up cub of a female snow leopard from the nearby area. In late 2017, we spotted her with two cubs. This could be the second cub,” Denis Malikov added.

Researchers claim that seeing a snow leopard in the wild is extremely rare. There have been only three known cases in the Altai Territory when a snow leopard was photographed during an encounter.