Employees of the reserve and the Khakass branch of the Russian Geographical Society received images of a young leopard and her two kittens. On this occasion, the scientific department of the protected area renewed the memory of the story of the resurgence of the snow leopard in Siberia.
Six years ago, the number of snow leopards (also known as snow leopards) in the Sayano-Shushensky Nature Reserve fell to a critical level – only one male lived here. To preserve the population, a male and a female were brought to the north of the mountain range from Tajikistan. In 2020, two kittens of different sex were born. In 2022, young snow leopards (female Klepa and male Sayan) were already living independently. In February 2023, thanks to videos of animals playing, biologists suggested that Klepa had befriended a male named Opera. In the spring, she saw the female with a noticeably rounded belly: she was waiting for offspring. In August, cameras recorded her with a kitten, but the exact number of her puppies was not yet known.
And now, after the autumn expeditions, experts shared information: Klepa’s two kittens have already grown up. “Today, the group of snow leopards in the Sayano-Shushensky Nature Reserve is stable and self-reproducing. In addition, the reserve has become the nucleus from which snow leopards spread to the adjacent territories,” said Gennady, head of the Sayano Joint Directorate. -Shushensky Nature Reserve and Shushensky Bor Kiselev National Park. According to him, this is a clear success of the world’s first snow leopard translocation experiment.
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The snow leopard is included in the Red Book of Russia and the Red List of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, since this representative of the cat family is on the verge of destruction. According to experts, the number of leopards in our country is about 90 specimens. Just a few months ago, there were nine snow leopards in the Sayano-Shushensky Nature Reserve. Now there are eleven.
