His Mongolian name is Angarag, which means Mars. To our researchers, he’s simply M24. But simple is the wrong word for this cat. He’s the 24th male snow leopard collared in our long-term ecological study in the mountains of Tost, Mongolia. He was about 2.5 to 3.5 years old when our scientists first collared him in 2025. Since then, his movements have intrigued our team, so we wanted to share a short update on what he’s been up to.
Today, protecting the cat means ensuring that communities have the agency, tools, and benefits to continue living alongside it. Coexistence is no longer an idea but a lived reality.
In January 2008, Kulbhushansingh Suryawanshi was 23 when he encountered three snow leopards in Spiti: a mother, her cub, and a sub-adult male beginning to make his way on his own. That night, Kullu bought livestock for a feast because the entire village wanted to celebrate.
With a range spanning some of the planet’s harshest mountain terrain, the snow leopard is one of nature’s most elusive big cats. It lives at densities of roughly one to three animals per 100 square kilometers, earning its reputation as the ghost of the mountains.
It’s that time of year again in the high mountains of Central Asia. No, not Valentine’s Day but something similar in the big cat world. It’s snow leopard mating season. And a bit more than three months later comes snow leopard cub season. How does the mythical ghost of the mountain compare to other big cats when it comes to love and family? We asked Senior Scientist Dr. Örjan Johansson and Assistant Director of Science Dr. Gustaf Samelius to share some of their insights into snow leopard mating habits and reproduction.
You’ve probably heard us say that there may be as few as 4,000 snow leopards left in the wild today. But what about a million years ago? New research from a study between Stanford University, Snow Leopard Trust and other collaborators suggests that snow leopards have had a consistently low population for at least the last nine hundred thousand years – and that could spell trouble for their future.
Findings from a new study have upended long-held assumptions about snow leopard eating habits. The results? Bigger is (almost) always better.
When our team recently visited five wild snow leopard cubs in their dens in Mongolia, the news made waves around the world. But this rare event isn’t just headline worthy—it’s scientifically important for the survival of the species. Since 2008, we’ve only visited snow leopard dens five other times. Each discovery provides vital data about reproduction in these elusive cats. Read on to find out why these moments matter so much for snow leopard conservation.
A research paper by Snow Leopard Trust scientists shows how dispersing young snow leopards can navigate and travel long distances in flat terrain in search of territories. It also reveals what triggers them to set out and how fences and linear infrastructure can disrupt their movements.
The Pallas’s cat is a small cat species that lives throughout the steppes and mountain grasslands of Asia. Sometimes referred to as ‘the grumpiest cat in the world’ because of its looks, it’s one of the least studied wild cats.
