Rare snow leopards captured in amazing footage during Bhutan survey on BrowseBiography

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Rare snow leopards captured in amazing footage during Bhutan survey

A great footage with rare snow leopards were captured during the first survey of snow leopards prey in Buthan's newest national park, Wangchuck Centennial Park. The recent images were released by the government of Bhutan and World Wildlife Fund, according to The Telegraph.

The short footage includes snow leopards engaging in scent-marking, which marks a leopard's turf, and a sub-adult snow leopard. The pictures are valuable because these elegant and elusive creatures aren't easy to photograph: Last year, in October and November scientists captured the first images of snow leopards in Siberia, and a rare image of a mother and cub in the Afghanistan mountains, as part of a survey conducted by Bhutan and WWF.

The new survey in Bhutan also took pictures of other species, such as a healthy population of blue sheep, which is the main food source for snow leopards. These new images are the first pictorial-based evidence that snow leopards are thriving in Wangchuck Centennial Park, a vital snow leopard corridor between Jigme Dorji National Park in the West and Bumdeling Wildlife Sanctuary in the East. Field biologists from the Government of Bhutan and the conservation group WWF captured more than 10,000 images during the camera trap survey.

The survey was focused on snow leopard prey species, but the scientists also captured images and footage of the Tibetan wolf, threatened Himalayan serow, musk deer, wild dog, red fox, Pika, pheasants and several birds of prey. "The findings are phenomenal as these are the first snow leopard images recorded in Wangchuck Centennial Park," said WWF's Rinjan Shrestha, who led the survey team. "It suggests that the network of protected areas and corridors is helping to link local snow leopard populations, which will be invaluable to ensure long-term persistence of snow leopards in the region."


 
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