Orjan is a Swedish PhD student who works at the base camp of our long-term research project in Mongolia. These are his adventures…
At 03:19 (on October 15, 2010) our trap surveillance system alarm went off. This system, with its siren, makes me feel a little like a fire-fighter. In true “fire-fighter manner,” I jumped into my clothes, packed the gear on the ATV and drove off. What I found was a pretty big female.
The collaring went smooth. After about an hour the cat’s temperature had dropped a bit so I applied two hot water bottles and wrapped her up in the wind bag. That helped, and she soon got warm again.
I had my hopes that she was the mother of Zaraa (the little female we caught in May), and they have just been confirmed as traveling together. That means two things:
First – we can study dispersal of sub-adult snow leopards for the first time ever.
Second – I just caught James Bond. I saw from the collar locations that Zaraa had been in the area when the two leopards had avoided four of my snares, so I take it that her mom is ‘James Bond – snare dodging cat’. I had improved the snares since then, shifting the triggers a little on some, and I also put up some colored feathers. Mrs. Bond was not prepared for that and could not resist checking the feathers out.
Assuming that the pic above is James Bond – gosh, that’s one grizzled, battle-worn face. I wonder how old she is?
Oh but isn’t she just so beautiful. I lover her black markings!