
There
are only a few thousand snow leopards left in the wild, and they are
extremely reclusive, living in the mountains and hunting only at dawn
and dusk. Now, for the first time time, we have video footage of a snow
leopard mother and cubs in their natural habitat. A team of researchers
from the
Snow Leopard Trust and
Panthera
found the den by attaching GPS units to snow leopards four years ago.
Imagine that job! The leopards’ movements clued them in that it was time
to give birth, high in the Tost Mountains of Mongolia.
“As we stood outside the den we could hear the cub and
smell the cats but not see anything inside the den,” said Panthera
scientist Orjan Johansson. He and colleagues acted quickly, taping a
camera to their antenna pole and extending it over the ledge blocking
the den entrance. The footage captured shows a female leopard looking up
at the camera, keeping a protective paw over her cub.
At the second den—a narrow crack in a cliff wall—the scientists
discovered that the mother was away hunting, leaving her two male cubs
unattended, seen below. “This was an unprecedented opportunity,” said
Rutherford. “We wanted to be as careful as possible and only take the
most pressing data.” The team quickly weighed, measured, photographed
and collected hair samples from the cubs, which allowed genetic testing
that confirmed sex and other information. More pictures of the cubs are
available at Panthera’s photo gallery.
See two short videos at
Surprising Science.
superb blogging!! keep doing this great stuff
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