Partnership Note: Snow Leopard Trust works in Kyrgyzstan in partnership with the Snow Leopard Foundation, conducting long-term monitoring in Sarychat-Ertash Reserve in cooperation with the reserve and its rangers.
Waiting for Hero Mother
Each year, Askat joins the Snow Leopard Foundation team in Kyrgyzstan when they set camera traps in Sarychat-Ertash Reserve. As a reserve ranger, he knows the valleys and ridges where the cameras are to be carried, installed, and later collected.
The work continues after the cameras return. Rangers and researchers review the images together and identify the animals that crossed each site. Like fingerprints, the pattern of spots and rosettes on a snow leopard’s coat can distinguish one cat from another, allowing researchers to follow individuals across years of camera-trap photographs. Among those images, Askat looked for one snow leopard in particular.
“I used to wait for the next camera-trapping session,” he said. “I always wanted to see whether she was there with her cubs or alone.”
The female became known as Hero Mother. Rangers and researchers adapted the name from a Soviet-era honor associated with women who raised large families. The name fit the record that grew around her. Over three litters, the cameras documented her raising seven cubs.
Three Litters, Seven Cubs
Hero Mother was one of the first snow leopards recorded when the camera-trap study began in the reserve in 2013. The team had only ten cameras then. She was already an adult, estimated to be two or three years old at the time.
The first litter, two cubs, appeared in the camera record around 2014. A second litter of three followed around 2017. The team recorded two more cubs in 2019. Monitoring records indicate that she successfully raised all seven. The spacing reflects the long period that young snow leopards remain dependent on their mothers. GPS studies of mother-cub pairs have found that young cats generally begin separating from their mothers during their second winter, at about 20–22 months of age, and the minimum interval between litters is about two years.
In partnership with Panthera, researchers fitted Hero Mother with a GPS collar around 2017. Collar data showed that while she was caring for three nearly grown cubs, she made a kill roughly every two or three days. By comparison, a 2015 study led by Snow Leopard Trust researcher Örjan Johansson, based on GPS-collar data and confirmed kill sites in Mongolia’s Tost Mountains, found that snow leopards make approximately one kill every eight days. Females raising cubs are expected to hunt more frequently because they are feeding their offspring as well as themselves, but Hero Mother’s recorded kill rate was unusually high. Rangers considered her an excellent hunter.
Koiluu Ridge
Koiluu Ridge was the center of Hero Mother’s range. Rangers knew she denned in the reserve’s core zone, near a ranger cabin. The cameras repeatedly recorded her in the surrounding valley, sometimes alone and sometimes with cubs.
During monitoring of Hero Mother’s three-cub litter, the team checked one of the cameras on Koiluu Ridge and found images taken about two hours earlier showing her with three very small cubs. The camera had not been placed at her den, but because the cubs were so young, they believed the den was nearby. They left the area quickly to avoid disturbing the family or drawing attention to the site.
The reserve rangers helped the research team set and retrieve cameras twice a year. Their knowledge of the terrain made it possible to return to the same sites, maintain the cameras, and interpret what appeared in the images. The photographs, in turn, allowed Askat and his colleagues to follow a wild cat they rarely saw directly.
Looking for the Next Generation
Hero Mother remained in the camera-trap record through 2021. Researchers have not identified her in the photographs collected since then. The team does not know whether she died, left the area, or moved beyond the cameras for a time.
Researchers are reviewing the reserve’s long camera-trap record to look for her grown cubs. Snow leopards can be identified by their spot patterns, but cubs are difficult to match once they mature and disperse. Young cats can also travel far from their natal ranges once they become independent. GPS studies have documented dispersing snow leopards moving tens of kilometers between mountain areas, which means Hero Mother’s offspring may now be beyond the reserve’s camera network. Confirming any of her offspring as adults would extend the record from one female to the next generation.
For Askat, Hero Mother was part of the reserve’s rhythm. He helped install the cameras, waited for their return, and searched the images for the cat that had made Koiluu Ridge her home. Based on her estimated age when first recorded in 2013, she would have been about 11 by 2021. We may not know what has become of Hero Mother, but Askat still thinks about her fondly.
“We knew Koiluu Ridge was her favorite place,” he said. “She stayed around the valley with her cubs. She lived a long and happy life.”
The breadth of knowledge we gained from Hero Mother, having had the opportunity to follow her through three litters and across eight years, is rare.
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Photo credits: Snow Leopard Foundation, Kyrgyzstan
Acknowledgment:
The Snow Leopard Foundation in Kyrgyzstan, Snow Leopard Trust’s conservation partner, conducts long-term monitoring in Sarychat-Ertash Reserve in cooperation with the reserve and its rangers. Panthera fitted Hero Mother with a GPS collar.
The Citizen-Ranger Wildlife Protection Program and the Ranger Awards Ceremony are funded by the UK government through the Illegal Wildlife Trade Challenge Fund and are organized by the Snow Leopard Foundation in Kyrgyzstan, in collaboration with Snow Leopard Trust and in cooperation with the Ministry of Natural Resources, Ecology and Technical Supervision of the Kyrgyz Republic.
We would like to acknowledge the support of: Artenschutzzentrum Grasleben, Chester Zoo, David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation, Korkeasaari Zoo, Seneca Park Zoo, Twinstrust, Whitley Fund for Nature, Woodland Park Zoo, Zoo Basel, Zoo Dresden, Zoo Krefeld, and Zoo New England.
We want to thank all of our incredible supporters for making this work possible.