Continued from May 2025
Field Update from May 11
We collared another female two days ago. I was hoping we would have received locations from the cat by now, but have not heard from the collar yet. Nothing strange, really. The collars try to send data every 25th hour, so only one communication opportunity has been missed.
I may have buried the lede here. The big news is that we collared another female on May 9. She is most likely a 2-year-old. Her ID is F20. Bayara was in camp and could join us, which was the best part of the whole experience! Everyone was so happy she could finally be with us during a collaring. She named the cat Gunj, which means Princess in Mongolian.
We’re eager to see if F20 could be a sibling to F16. Unfortunately, it seems like the cameras deployed in F12’s range in last autumn’s survey didn’t work. So we may not have any photos of her mother, F12, and these cubs when they are big. We’ll check to see if Buren had any cub cameras in her area. If these have been collected, then we may have photos of the litter.
The capture was uneventful, which is obviously what we want. We caught her in the same snare where we caught F16 and F19 (the second time). It was also an early morning. I had said that we would carry the cat away from the snare if we caught another one to give the nesting wheatears some peace, but too many people were joining us to start carrying the cat. The birds were actually relatively invisible. Perhaps the people kept them in check. (In case you missed the pied wheatear drama, see part 1 of this field update.)
Here you can see Ollie, Cecilia and me shading the cat from the sun. She woke up shortly after the photo was taken and looked back over her shoulder at us. When I put a hand on her shoulder, she lay down again. I gave the antidote and when we left, she just walked away. Then the wheatears appeared and started harassing and diving in on her. I feel a bit sorry for them, but it must also be quite a power rush for those two little birds to ’scare’ away a snow leopard from their territory three times in a bit more than a week.
Field Update from May 12
We received locations from Gunj’s collar today. She has travelled north and is more or less in the middle of the crater. She and F16 have travelled north parallel to each other and F16 is currently just west of the crater, almost at the edge of Tost. She’ll have to turn around now or cross over to Nemegt.
Field Update from May 13
All three females collared this spring have made kills and are moving normally. Gunj (F20) must have made a kill in the crater, see map below. She moves back and forth between the kill where we found some pieces of bone and a daybed in the lower left corner. There is no scale, but the ‘kill cluster is about 15 x 15 m.
Field Update from May 15
We finally collared an ibex female today (ID IF11). She was waiting at the well when we arrived and went into the trap about 15 minutes after we had set up. She looked at the trap for a long while, but once she had decided, she walked in quickly and lay down to drink. From a scientific perspective, I should have dropped the doors immediately, but I didn’t have the heart to do that, so instead I tried to count to ten and then released the doors so she would have time to get some sips at least. I didn’t have to worry because she was very relaxed in the trap. She walked back and forth once when the doors closed and then lay down to drink again.
The capture went smoothly. We learned a lot that will help us perfect the technique. She is lactating and we spotted a couple of kids (possibly hers) plus some other ibex higher up. She is the 14th ibex we’ve collared and the first that we’ve captured in the cage trap we built in 2017. Conditions are not ideal since it hasn’t rained and there is a fair bit of green grass, so the ibex don’t need to drink as often as they do before the grass emerges. If we had timed this better, we would have caught more, but we have learned a lot and are hopeful for the next trip.
Since the ibex is a mom, Cecilia (a postdoc student working with us) named her Mama Mia, which means “my mother” in Italian. It’s also an Italian expression of surprise or excitement. We’ll call her Mia for short. Note that the Satellite communication is not activated, so it may be a few days before we get locations. She was in perfect shape when she left us. (read Cecilia’s field update here)
Final field update
Well, to wrap things up, we’ve collared three snow leopards, one ibex, visited 46 clusters and had the pleasure of hosting the British ambassador and her team, who stopped by to see what we’re up to out here. Not a bad few weeks in the field.
WHAT HAVE THE COLLARED ANIMALS BEEN UP TO SINCE WE LEFT?
When our science team returned from the field, they began piecing together the movements of these elusive cats. The maps below reveal each animal’s story through digital breadcrumbs in the form of GPS data points—every dot marks a location in space and time, every cluster of dots shows a hunting ground or resting spot. Together, these data points paint a picture of how these cats navigate their world, revealing the invisible boundaries of their home ranges and the hidden patterns that govern their daily lives.
Snow Leopards
F12 Wilian (red)
F12 started moving outside her territory in late autumn, making several long-distance travels to the northern part of Tost. We don’t know if this was to introduce her cubs to the area before they left her to start their independent lives, or if she has been ousted from her territory. Her grown cubs left her sometime this winter. Since then, she has been back in her normal range but also travelled outside of it. She may currently be denning, or she simply killed a very large prey. It is a little too early to tell just yet. If she is denning, she is outside of her territory, which would indicate that she has lost it.
F16 Oluula (orange)
F16 is Wilian’s (F12) daughter. She was collared in April 2025 at two years of age. She travels around over a large portion of Tost, apparently looking for a vacant area to settle in. We are eager to see where she will end up.
F19 (purple)
This is a grand-cub to the first female we collared, Suhder (F1). F19 was born in 2020. Her mother was never collared, but in the camera database, she is named Guierrero. We have not detected Guierrero on camera in a few years and believe she has passed away. While we do not know her exact territory, the camera data indicates that F19 has inherited roughly the same area.
F20 Gunj (pink)
This is another two-year-old female we collared in the same site as F16. We think they are sisters, but we need better photos to confirm this. She left Tost and crossed about 40 km of steppe before reaching Nemegt, the mountain range North of Tost, a few days after collaring. We are very eager to see where she will settle down. Hopefully, we can identify her in the cameras to determine where she was raised. It’s possible she came from Nemegt, made a short visit to Tost and then returned. But she could also be one of F12’s cubs.
M23 Salkh (blue)
M23 remains in his territory in the eastern part of Tost. He covers about 1/3 of the southern mountain range, which is the average-sized territory for an adult male. M23 has a habit of covering his territory in clockwise ‘circles’. We have never seen a snow leopard with such regular movement patterns before. Most likely, the shape of the territory creates this type of movement.
M24 Angarag (green)
M24 is likely 4 years old now. He still moves around over a large portion of Tost, the movement pattern suggests that he has not found a vacant place to settle in.
NOTE: Why we collar cats
Tracking snow leopards reveals crucial information about these elusive animals that we couldn’t learn any other way. The collars, typically programmed to detach after 20 months, provide valuable information that directly shapes our conservation strategies to protect this endangered species.
Ibex
IF10 Emma
Emma remains in the same area where she was collared in autumn 2024, close to our old Base Camp. She gave birth to a kid in early April. Her GPS data showed that she stayed high up in rugged terrain, a common antipredator strategy for ibex females with newborn kids. They use terrain that wolves and foxes have problems navigating. We saw the two of them on May 7th. Once the kids are fast and agile enough to escape onto the cliffs if a predator is detected, the females also use gentler slopes with better grazing. We saw this in Emma’s movements in early May.
IF11 Mia
Mia was collared in Spring 2025. She resides in the mountains surrounding the southern part of East Valley, where we collared snow leopards in spring. She also has a kid. We can’t say too much about her movements yet.
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Photos: SLCF-Mongolia and Oliver Wearn for SLT
Acknowledgments: This long-term ecological study is in collaboration with Snow Leopard Conservation Foundation in Mongolia and Snow Leopard Trust, with special thanks to the Ministry of Nature, Environment and Tourism, the Government of Mongolia, and the Mongolian Academy of Sciences for their support.
We would also like to acknowledge: Acton Family Giving, Bioparc Zoo de Doue la Fontaine, David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation, Idaho Falls Zoo at Tautphaus Park, John Ball Zoo, Kolmårdens Zoo, Korkeasaari Zoo, National Geographic Society, Nordens Ark, Parco Zoo Punta Verde, Play for Nature, Tierpark Berlin, The Big Cat Sanctuary/Wildlife Heritage Foundation, Tulsa Zoo, Whitley Fund for Nature, Zoo Basel, Zoo Dresden, Zoo New England and the many incredible partners who have supported programs like our Long-term Ecological Study and research in Mongolia since it began in 2008. We could not do this work without you.