Anu’s Tale – From Little Cub to Proud Mother of Triplets

In the fall of 2014, our team retrieved one of our research cameras, stationed near a watering hole frequently used by the area’s animals. Days later, we got an excited email from the field: “Amazing pics. Mother with 3 cubs!”

It took half a year and some painstaking detective work until we realized we knew the mom of these three cuties. It was Anu!

In the secretive world of the elusive snow leopard, Anu is an exception. While other cats stay hidden forever, Anu has become something a public ambassador for her species. Born in Mongolia’s Tost mountains on the edge of the Gobi desert in 2009, Anu was first thrust into the spotlight a year later.

Part of A Groundbreaking Study

Around the time Anu was born, researchers from the Snow Leopard Trust had set up camp just a few miles from her den site for what was to become the world’s first long-term study of this endangered cat’s ecology and behavior. Using technology such as motion-sensor cameras and GPS tracking collars, the scientists sought to lift the veil on some of the snow leopard’s secrets: how much space do these cats need? How much prey do they consume? How do they interact? Where do they migrate to, and which patterns do they follow?

The answers to some of these questions have helped shape effective conservation measures over the last years. The study showed that more than a dozen cats lived in this area – information that has been critical in partially protecting Tost from the threat of mining until now. Data from the study proved that snow leopards migrate between various mountain chains, crossing steppe and desert if necessary – promoting efforts to protect these important corridors along with the mountains they link.

In 2010, when Anu was around one year old, she was photographed for the first time by one of the Snow Leopard Trust’s research cameras, hiding behind her mother, a cat the scientists had named Inquisitive for her curious nature.

At the time, it was estimated that Anu would soon disperse from her mom and set out on her own to find a suitable home range, and indeed, in the spring of 2011, when she made her next appearance in front of a camera, Anu was traveling alone and had developed into a fully grown young cat.

Historic Mom

A couple of weeks later, our research team achieved a breakthrough: an alarm went off at basecamp, indicating that a snow leopard had been caught by a hidden snare, giving the scientists the opportunity to equip the cat with a GPS tracking collar. The cat in the snare was Anu.

The researchers had set out to collar a young female, hoping she’d have cubs while they were tracking her. Anu didn’t appear to be pregnant though – but with the collars lasting for about 18 months, they were hopeful for 2012.

As her collar steadily sent location data to a satellite, our team tracked Anu’s movements for about a year. In the spring of 2012, they noticed a change in her ranging patterns. She restrained her movements more and more, using only a very small portion of her home range. Eventually, she stopped moving altogether. For the Trust researchers, this was exactly the sign they had been hoping for. They believed Anu was about to give birth.

They tracked her signals to a remote cave, not far from the study’s base camp. There, hidden behind a wall of rocks that must have been built years earlier by local herders, they heard faint sounds. They attached a camera to stick – a bit of a makeshift set-up, as this was before the era of the ubiquitous self-stick – and carefully lifted it over the wall to film the inside of the cave.

It may only be a few seconds of shaky images, but the footage the team took that day was historical: the first ever video of a wild snow leopard cub in its den, with its mother, Anu.

Watch the footage of Anu and her cub. Another female, Lasya, was found with two cubs around the same time.

A few days later, Anu ventured out of the den to hunt for food. The team used this opportunity to examine her cub, carefully inspecting, weighing and photographing the little kitten. They quickly left the den site and waited at a safe distance for Anu to come home.

After a few hours, Anu returned with dinner and settled back into the den with her offspring.

The photos and videos had a major impact in the scientific community and were celebrated by snow leopard lovers around the world. Anu, however, didn’t seem to be impressed by her sudden fame. Instead, she began venturing out of the den with her cub, teaching the little one to hunt and survive in the rugged mountains of their home.

Anu’s GPS collar dropped off as scheduled soon after, and the team lost sight of her and her cub for a while – our research cameras kept track of them though. 

In the fall of 2012, they appeared in a photo – the cub still relatively small. Our team was anxious to see how the two cats would fare through the hard Mongolian winter.

A few months later, in early 2013, the got their answer, as Anu and her cub again passed in front of a camera. By then, the tiny ball of fur our team had found in its den had grown into a handsome young adult.

After this sighting, we lost track of mother and cub for a couple of months. In this time, the cub must have dispersed to find its own home range.

Detective Work Leads to Discovery

When a camera stationed near a watering hole in 2014 took pictures of a female snow leopard with three cubs, we were elated. Footage of wild cubs is still exceedingly rare, and is always a powerful sign of hope.

A dedicated volunteer, Simone Schreiber, put together a short video of the playful cubs, and thousands of supporters enjoyed seeing them. Behind the scenes, however, we were trying to find out how this cat was.

Check out video footage of Anu and her three cubs, taken in 2014

In the photos from the watering hole, it’s hard to make out much of the mother’s fur pattern, which is how individual cats can be identified. So, as a direct ID was impossible, our researchers looked for other photos of the quartet, where they may be more easily identified.

Finally, Dr. Koustubh Sharma, the Trust’s Senior Regional Ecologist, found the key pic: 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 IDs.

“It took some time, and I hit quite a few dead ends, but I was finally able to confirm that the mother with three cubs is indeed Anu”, Koustubh says. 

“Seeing Anu again, with a new litter of cubs, gives me hope. It shows that this sliver of snow leopard habitat we’re working to protect in Mongolia is a suitable home for this endangered cat, and could support a healthy population.”

You can help protect Anu and her cubs and their habitat in Mongolia’s South Gobi by making a donation today!

When can we expect to see Anu and her small family again? “If we’re lucky, they’ll have passed some of our cameras this spring. We’ll collect those photos soon, so stay tuned”, Koustubh says.