We’ve been really excited to follow two female snow leopard: Tenger and her daughter Zaraa and now, for the first time, we are watching this snow leopard cub ‘leave the nest!’
The timing of Zaraa’s apparent separation from her mother is occurring around the time of year when we believe snow leopards begin breeding. This makes us speculate whether one or both of the females may have come into oestrus, leading to the separation. Zaraa has explored the eastern edge of the Tost Mountains, and although she did return from there she is still some distance from her mother. We hope to learn about her movement patterns in the coming weeks and are interested to see where she sets up her own home range. Also, Aztai has been seen very close to both Tenger and Zaraa. So it will be interesting to see if Aztai’s movements overlap with either of these females.
We hope you are excited as we are to watch Zaraa ‘grow up’!