Participants of the expedition, which took place with the support of the Interregional Association "Irbis" from September 7 to September12, 2023, found traces of snow leopards on the Ukok high-altitude plateau. The video trap recorded how the snow leopard carefully sniffs the camera, on the video you can hear how the snow leopard is breathing rapidly, noisily sucking in air, examining the device from all sides. As all snow leopard cats are curious, a new object on the trail has aroused the animal's interest.

Animals are often studied, sniffed, and sometimes cameras are broken or thrown off, but the girl was lucky in this video, she saved unique footage for scientists.

The participants of the Ukok expedition, who were employees of the Sailugemsky National Park and the Directorate of Specially Protected Natural Territories of Altai, checked three camera traps installed earlier and found three scrapes— piles of stones or soil that snow leopards rake with their hind paws. The cameras recorded the passage of at least two snow leopards.

“

There are more than sixteen thousand frames on one of the camera traps. The exact number of snow leopards will be determined later, but it is safe to say that the Ukok plateau remains the habitat of the snow leopard. Snow leopards are recorded in the same tracts as before. The footage was obtained from the same stone where the first footage of Ukok's snow leopards was obtained many years ago: a female Southerner, and later her kittens.

Denis Gulyaev, Deputy Director of Sailyugemsky National Park.

Scientists have installed 10 camera traps in new places where snow leopards are likely to appear in Ukoka, which will help expand the territory of the study of the snow leopard. In the future, automatic cameras will be checked by employees of the Directorate of Protected Areas of Altai, which manages the Ukok Rest Zone Nature Park, created on the plateau in 2005. For the work, the Interregional Association "Irbis" handed over 10 camera traps, field equipment and uniforms to the Directorate.

For the first time, automatic snow leopard surveillance cameras were installed on the Ukok Plateau in 2017.

At that time, experts recorded a small number of predator tracks, a low number of ungulates and a large concentration of tourist groups harassing wild animals. Biologists no longer hoped for luck, however, in 2018, cameras captured a Southerner in the UK. Over the past five years, the cameras in Ukoka have been checked by employees of the Directorate of Specially Protected Natural Territories of Altai with the involvement of volunteers.

Ukok Plateau is a remote unique territory in the Altai Republic on the border with Mongolia. In 2005, the Ukok Rest Zone Nature Park was created here, the territory is part of the UNESCO World Natural Heritage Site Altai— Golden Mountains.