Abstract: Snow leopards (Uncia uncia) are highly cryptic and occupy remote inaccessible habitat, making studying the cats difficult in the extreme. Yet sound knowledge of the cat's ecology, behavior and habitat needs is required to intelligently conserve them. This information is lacking for snow leopards, and until recently so was the means to fill that knowledge gap. Two long-term studies of snow leopards using VHF radio collars have been undertaken in Nepal (1980s) and Mongolia (1990s) but logistical and technological constraints made the findings of both studies equivocal. Technological advances in the interim, such as GPS collars which report data via satellite, make studies of snow leopards more promising, at least in theory.

Abstract: The snow leopard (Uncia uncial Schreber, 1776) is the most poorly studied species of the cat family in the world and, in particular, in Russia, where the northern periphery of the species area (no more than 3% of it) is located in the Altai-Hangai-Sayan range [1]. It is generally known that the existing data on the Russian part of the snow leopard population have never been a result of targeted studies; at best, they have been based on recording the traces of the snow leopard vital activity [2]. This is explained by the snow leopard's elusive behavior, inaccessibility of its habitats for humans, and its naturally small total numbers in the entire species area. All published data on the population status of the snow leopard in Russia, from the first descriptions of the species [3-6] to the latest studies [7, 8] are subjective, often speculative, and are not confirmed by
quantitative estimates. It is obvious, however, that every accurate observation of this animal is of particular interest [9]. The purpose of our study was to determine the structure and size of the population group presumably inhabiting the Western Sayan mountain ridge at the northern boundary of the species area