The reserve’s personnel have retrieved fresh spring images of the snow leopard family, which show that the cubs’ first winter went well.

The photos were taken in daytime, so it’s easy to see the spot patterns of the cubs, which posed from all angles. The images will be used to make their “passports” for their subsequent identification.

One male and one female snow leopard were released in the Sayano-Shushensky Reserve under an international project implemented in 2018-2019 in cooperation with Tajikistan and as part of The Snow Leopard – A Living Symbol of the Western Sayan Mountains project, which was supported by the Russian Geographical Society. In 2020, the couple had cubs.

The snow leopards are being watched through a network of 80 camera traps installed in the reserve.

“During the winter, the camera traps mostly registered male leopards, both in the south and in the north of the reserve. The female leopard was seen only rarely, and always without her cubs,” said Roman Afanasyev, a senior researcher at the Sayano-Shushensky Reserve. “We retrieved the photos and video images of the female leopard with her well-grown cubs only during a research expedition we held in April.”

The snow leopard cubs will be one year old soon. According to experts, the pictures show that they are doing well.