Incredibly rare footage has captured a mother snow leopard and her three cubs trudging through thick snow in the mountains of northern Pakistan.
Sakhawat Ali, a gamekeeper at the Central Karakoram National Park in Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan, spotted the elusive animals on March 13 in a remote village called Hushe after two weeks of tracking their pugmarks [pawprints].
“Spotting four snow leopards is a great joy, as it indicates that the snow leopard population is increasing,” Ali told Live Science.
Snow leopards (Panthera uncia) are an elusive species of big cat that can be found in mountainous areas across 12 countries in Central and Eastern Asia, and sightings are exceedingly rare. Their white coats render them almost invisible against the snowy mountains they call home, and more than 70% of their habitat remains unexplored, according to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).
Since late February, Ali said he had been noticing snow leopard pugmarks around the village. “While I was on the roof of my house, I used binoculars to observe the mountains and spotted a female snow leopard along with her four cubs,” he said. “I quickly moved closer and filmed them from a distance of about 250 meters [820 feet].”
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Snow leopards are usually solo travellers, so seeing four together is exceedingly rare.
“In the village [of Hushe] we are used to seeing snow leopards, but nobody, not even the elders that I spoke to, have ever seen four snow leopards in one go,” Ali told CNN.
Female snow leopards typically have between one and five cubs with each litter, according to WWF. At three months old, the cubs begin to follow their mother out of their dens to learn how to hunt in their environment. However, they stay with their mothers until they are almost 2-years-old, according to San Diego Zoo.
The big cats are considered vulnerable to extinction, with only 4,000 to 6,000 individuals left worldwide, according to WWF estimates.
The Baltistan Wildlife Conservation and Development Organization (BWCDO), which shared Ali’s video on Facebook, said the sighting was a positive sign of successful conservation efforts in the Hushe Valley area. However, the species still faces numerous threats.
According to the United Nations Environment Program, poaching, habitat fragmentation, prey depletion and climate change all threaten the snow leopard’s existence.
