Captive Animals Baby Snow Leopard

[AlphaWorld]

During lockdown the snow leopards at Melbourne Zoo had three babies. Five years later, they've had four more.

The cubs were born in January, but they were off-display for some months for multiple reasons (the habitat for the snow leopards is oriented towards animals who like heights, and babies, even snow leopard babies, can fall. They finally came out about a week ago, but they aren't out long at a time.

Here is a shot I took of one of the cubs with mum. The cub had managed to get up to the height that mum had gone to. They are several metres above the ground.

Shot with the 400-800 at 626mm, f/8, 1/2000, ISO 6400 on the A1 II. This image is the full frame (scaled for this site).

 

[THXGEEK]

What incredibly beautiful and unique creatures!




...and so sad that they are endangered due to the loss of viable habitat.

 

[AlphaWorld]

I went again today, and the cubs were more visible - I even got to see all four, but not close enough to get a photo. It was fully overcast, but reasonably bright, with intermittent sprinkling of rain (apparently the rain may be a reason for their activity).

I got two cubs with mum. This shows how the babies have spots, but with age they fade to rosettes (I think that's what the dark edge/lighter middle is called).

Shot with the 400-800 at 450mm f/6.3, 1/1250 on the A1 II at ISO 12800

And I could not resist this shot of the young one complaining about washing behind his ears

Shot with the 400-800 at 462mm f/6.3, 1/2000 on the A1 II at ISO 8000.