Nature Finds a Way
With her habitat relatively secure, Anu has been
able to thrive in Tost.
In 2014, a camera trap stationed near
a watering hole took pictures of a female snow
leopard with three cubs. Naturally, we were
elated. Footage of wild cubs is still exceedingly
rare, and is always a powerful sign of hope.
In the photos from the watering hole, it’s hard
to make out much of the mother’s fur pattern.
It proved impossible to identify the cat. But that
didn’t stop us! Our team pored over thousands
of photos from other cameras, hoping to find
more photos of the quartet where they may be
more easily identified.
Finally, Dr. Koustubh Sharma, a senior
scientist with the Snow Leopard Trust, found
the key picture: a crystal-clear image of the
mother, trailing her three cubs, taken near the
same watering hole, but by a different camera.
He was able to confirm that it was the same cat
as in the other photos. More importantly, he
now had a good picture of her spots to compare
with our database of snow leopard photos.
What sounds like a quick job for a computer is
actually a bit more complicated than that.
Slight differences in posture, angle or lighting
can distort fur patterns significantly.
Sometimes, what looks like two different cats
may indeed be one and the same animal, while
similarities in patterns between two cats can
lead to false identifications.
It took some time, and he hit quite a few dead
ends, but Koustubh was finally able to confirm
that the mother with three cubs was, indeed,
our friend Anu.
After her first cub dispersed – probably
toward the end of 2013 – Anu wasted no time.
She found a mate, and had a new litter of cubs
the next spring!
Of course, we were excited about the
discovery, and shared Anu’s extraordinary
story with our supporters immediately.
After all, there aren’t too many wild snow
leopards we know as well as her – and none
who have let us watch them grow up and give
birth to two separate litters of cubs!
Next, we were in for a wait. It would be
months until we could recover the next season’s
photos, where we hoped to find Anu and
her offspring again. Would they have made
it through the winter?
The first reports weren’t encouraging. Our
Mongolian field team brought the cameras back
from Tost, and uploaded the photos to a cloud
server. They skimmed through them, looking
for Anu and her family, but to no avail.
Eventually, we began to catalog the pictures
more systematically, the basis for any scientific
analysis. Soon, it became clear that there was
no group of three young adults with their mom.A LITTER OF
CUBS DIES,
AND THE
MOTHER
I M M E DI AT ELY
REPRODUCES
AGAIN...
FOR WILDLIFE,
IT IS THE CIRCLE
OF LIFE
L E F T: Anu and her
cub in the den
RIGHT: Anu
immobilised by Örjan| SNOW LEOPARDSWILDLIFE64 April 2017