Employees of the Sailyugem National Park captured a whole family of snow leopards with two-month-old cubs.

A family of snow leopards was filmed by a video trap of the Sailyugem National Park in the Altai Republic on the South Chuisky Ridge, which is an important habitat for this rare predator in Russia. The place where the camera is installed is difficult to access, so despite the fact that the video was received in August, scientists were able to check the cameras only recently. The mother snow leopard and three small cubs pass in front of the camera trap lens at night. Secretive predators are active at dusk, so there is nothing surprising here. The cubs are still small, they were born this year in May or June, then the babies grew up in the den for one or two months, fed on milk, and the female protected the cubs.

By August, the female snow leopard took the kittens for a walk at night, when there were fewer dangers, but she still did not take them far from the den. The kittens will become adults only when they reach two years of age.
This female has long been known to scientists at the Sailyugem National Park, she has already been recorded by cameras — for the first time in 2021 and immediately with two adult kittens, who separated from their mother that same year, later — with another litter of two kittens, who separated from their mother in 2023.

“

Secret predators are active at dusk, so there is nothing surprising here. The kittens are still small, they were born this year in May or June, then the babies grew up in the den for one or two months, fed on milk, and the female protected the kittens.

Denis Malikov, deputy director of the Sailyugem National Park.

The footage shows that the kittens are very active, at this age they are very playful. According to scientists from the Sailyugem National Park, there are enough wild ungulates in the area where the spotted family has settled, and there should be enough food in the wild for the cubs to survive.
Sailyugem National Park regularly monitors snow leopards using automatic cameras in the Altai Republic with the support of the Interregional Association "Irbis". The goal of the monitoring is to track the number and condition of the rare cat species.

The Altai Republic ranks first among Russian regions in terms of snow leopard numbers. At least 54 snow leopards live here. The Sailyugem National Park coordinates the main work on snow leopard research in the Altai Mountains, and in 2024 it became the coordinator of the all-Russian snow leopard census.