It was 2009 in a small valley in the Gobi Desert in southern Mongolia, about 50 miles from the Chinese border. Local sheep and goat herders in the area had spotted a female snow leopard up on a cliff a year before and Jan Janecka wanted to investigate. He climbed for around 40 feet to a ledge covered in broken boulders, with a cave behind and was thrilled to find hair, scat and other clues that pointed to the likelihood that a female snow leopard used the area to raise cubs.
After nearly 10 years tracking snow leopards, it’s the closest the member of The Wildlife Society has ever come to actually seeing one in the wild.
Joshua Rapp Learn 