The Gangotri National Park management in Uttarkashi district in Uttarakhand usually depends on camera traps or hidden cameras for getting photographs and videos of snow leopards. In an unprecedented case recently though, its forest patrol team members managed to take a photo and make a video clip of the endangered snow leopard through their mobile phones.

Filming and taking photographs of snow leopards in any terrain is difficult. Snow leopards’ fur patterns camouflage their bodies in a terrain making it hard for onlookers to spot them. And after spotting humans they run to disappear from the site to give little time for filming and photography.

This season patrol teams of the Gangotri National Park were successful in taking a photograph and shooting a 35 second video clip of a snow leopard with their smartphones.

The Gangotri National Park missed the usual tourists’ buzz this time due to Covid- 19 lockdown and aftermath of the pandemic. Only in October and November the movement of tourists was registered in the park. This year 2,161 tourists visited the Gangotri Park.

Last year the number of visitors was over 16,000.

The Gangotri Park’s ranger Pratap Panwar says, “During patrol our teams have encountered many brown bears this time. We were successful in taking a photograph of a snow leopard and shooting a video clip of a snow leopard this season. This was the first ever such instance in the park.”

The 35 second clip shows the snow leopard moving swiftly on a vertical cliff.

The Gangotri National Park was established in 1989. The 1,553 square kilometres area of the park is home to many endangered species including blue sheep, black bear, brown bear, musk deer and snow leopard among others. The Gangotri Park is thrown open for tourists annually from 1 April to 30 November. Due to the coronavirus pandemic and lockdown, low visitors’ attendance was registered at the Gangotri National Park this year. The low crowd movement gave wildlife more open space. The park’s patrol staff thus saw many animals — which they used to see far away from the trek route — on the Gangotri- Gaumukh trek route.