Aztai and Khashaa Get New Collars!

Orjan returned to our Mongolian research base camp in early October, and he has already accomplished some incredible things. With the help of Kullu from our India program, Aztai was fitted with a replacement collar on October 15th. The new collar has been reprogrammed to send updates on Aztai’s locations more frequently, giving us the chance to learn even more about this remarkable snow leopard. Aztai was one of the first cats we met through our long term ecological study and so he made the perfect candidate to receive the special new collar.

Three days later on October 18th, Khashaa also received a replacement collar but when researchers made it to the site, they noticed she was not travelling alone. Khashaa was accompanied by her two cubs, who sat high up on the mountain face and watched over their mother while she was being fitted. While running the standard health tests, Orjan made an incredible discovery. Khashaa was weighed at 41.5 kg, which is the world record for any female snow leopard we’ve seen in the wild so far. This means that Khashaa and her two cubs are all extremely healthy, and this ‘supermom’ continues to live up to her name!

Photos Courtesy of SLT/Panthera, Khashaa photo by Ben Morlang

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