Snow leopards are one of, if not the, most difficult big cats to spot thanks to their perilous habitats and shadowy movements. These cats typically live at altitudes between 3,000 to 4,500 meters across Central and South Asia, meaning researchers, who’ve nickanmed them the “Ghosts of the Mountains” often have their work cut out.
However, over the years, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) has partnered with local conservation efforts to help restore populations of the big cat, in the process drip-feeding images to the public from their trail cams.
The latest photos to appear on WWF’s social channels have come from an ongoing survey which began in 2022 to document the elusive mountain cats across 10 high-altitude regions in China, including the Wolong National Nature Reserve (Sichuan Province) and the Sanjiangyuan National Park (Qinghai Province).
Since then, the network of cameras has captured more than 600 photos of snow leopards and recorded 157 separate sightings, shedding new light on the species’ population, of which only 22% is estimated to have been documented by researchers.
While snow leopards remain largely out of human sight high up in the mountains, the researchers hope the passive infrared (PIR) cameras, which can function in temperatures as low as -40°C, will reveal greater numbers of these cats than previously known.
Along with capturing snow leopards, the current survey has also snapped pictures of other high-altitude species, including foxes and takins – large, stocky mammals native to the eastern Himalayas that look like a cross between a bison and a moose.
WWF hasn’t mentioned when the current survey will come to an end, so hopefully there will be more snow leopard and other wildlife pictures shared over the coming months too.
You might also like…
Discover our expert pick of the best cameras for wildlife photography. We’ve put all of these models through rigorous hand-on testing so you know which one to buy!
