The number of snow leopards registered in the Altai Reserve is growing

For the first time, four snow leopards have been registered in the Altai Reserve - a male and a female with two cubs. Previously, employees recorded only one or two individuals. This was reported on its website by the Association of Reserves and National Parks of the Altai-Sayan Ecoregion

“Checking the camera traps in July 2023, installed on the Shapshalsky Ridge, brought good news: for the first time in the entire observation period, the passage of 4 snow leopards was registered. The cameras are checked once a year due to the inaccessibility of the territory, so the data is received with a delay of one year. On August 4, 2022, a female and her two cubs posed for the cameras, and on October 25, another male leopard passed by the cameras," the report says.

In previous years, usually one or two individuals were noted in the reserve. Both the female and the male have already been recorded before. The first footage of the snow leopard from photographic recorders, which confirmed the habitation of the snow leopard in the Altai Reserve on the Shapshal Ridge, was obtained in 2017.

According to the staff of the reserve, a transboundary group of snow leopards lives on the Shapshalsky and Tsagan-Shibetu ridges. Research work has shown that snow leopards enter the western macroslope of Shapshala on the territory of the Altai Reserve.

“Year-round habitation is hindered by deep snow in winter and a weak food base,” the association quotes the words of Sergei Spitsyn, a senior researcher at the Altai Reserve, an authoritative scientist in the study of the snow leopard and Altai mountain sheep in the Altai Republic and adjacent territories.

As the association noted, the snow leopard is still one of the most understudied feline species in the world. The irbis is listed in the Red Book of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and has the status of a rare or endangered species in all 12 countries where it lives. In Russia, the snow leopard lives in the northern part of its modern range and forms only a few stable groups in optimal habitats - the mountains of the Altai-Sayan ecoregion. The number of snow leopards in Russia is only 1–2% of the world abundance of the species. According to experts, there are about 70-90 individuals in the Russian part of the Altai-Sayan ecoregion, while there are no more than 4 thousand of them on the planet.