In the KoshAgach District of the Republic of Altai, the XXIII Altai volunteer expedition "Following the Snow Leopard" was held with the support of the Interregional Association "Irbis" and Sberbank PJSC as part of the "Saving Together" programme, in partnership with the Altai Nature Reserve and the Saylyugemsky National Park.
Volunteers from Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Naberezhnye Chelny, Novosibirsk, Barnaul, and the Republic of Altai took part in the expedition, along with an employee of the Altai Nature Reserve, a volunteer from Sberbank PJSC, and an employee of the Interregional Association "Irbis".
The participants covered 22 hiking routes in the high mountains, including four new reconnaissance routes. These allowed them to establish a monitoring grid in line with the officially approved monitoring methodology in Russia, which requires at least one camera trap to be installed in each 5×5 km square within the monitoring area, with no gaps. The specialists checked the 57 automatic cameras, replaced their batteries, collected the data, and installed 17 new camera traps.

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Unfortunately, our assumptions have been confirmed: the cubs of the female snow leopard, which were recorded by the cameras last year, did not survive the winter. The cubs are still young, and at about one year of age they stay with their mother. However, the camera traps captured the female without her cubs. This means that something happened to the cubs. The absence of females with cubs is a worrying sign for this crucial area, which is home to a transboundary snow leopard (irbis) population

commented Igor Pautov, Strategic Development Advisor at the Interregional Association "Irbis" and head of the "Following the Snow Leopard" volunteer expedition.

Thanks to the fact that this year the volunteer groups worked simultaneously on different sides of the Chikhachev Ridge — in neighbouring the Republic of Tuva and the Republic of Altai — they managed to record the presence of a dominant male snow leopard named Toshtu in Tuva. He is expanding his hunting area in search of food resources and has started appearing in Tuva, where he had not been recorded before.
Experts emphasise that the snow leopard population in the Altai and Tuva parts of the Chikhachev Ridge is a single group, and the conservation of these animals should be carried out in close cooperation between the environmental organisations of the two regions.
The expedition data will be processed and analysed, and an assessment will be made of the population size and the condition of the Chikhachev Ridge group this season.