The second research center for the study of snow leopards will open in Kyrgyzstan

KAZAN, September 30 – RIA Novosti. The second site of the Snow Leopard center - the Ak Ilbirs research center - will open in Kyrgyzstan in October, reports the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources of Tatarstan.

“In the Kyrgyz Republic, on the shores of Issyk-Kul, the Ak Ilbirs research center will open on October 23. It will become the second scientific site of the Snow Leopard research center, which has already been created in the Altai Republic on behalf of and with the support of the rais of the Republic of Tatarstan,” the message says.

The Snow Leopard Center in the Altai Republic operates as a specialized platform for studying and preserving the snow leopard directly in its natural habitat. In the village of Karym, a research building with laboratories, a veterinary block with a hospital and an operating room, a utility block and an area for storing feed and equipment, an aviary complex, as well as residential buildings for scientific workers have been created. The founders of the project are the Ministry of Ecology of Tatarstan, the Academy of Sciences of the Republic, Kazan Federal University, the Irbis Association, and the Tatneft-Ak Bars company.

“A research center has already been created in Altai, where serious work is being done to study this unique animal together with scientific organizations. The research that we are conducting is in many ways unique and can be scaled up internationally in the future. The next step will be the opening of a second site of the research center in the Kyrgyz Republic,” noted Deputy Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources of Tatarstan Olga Manidicheva.

According to her, this will allow expanding the geography of research and continuing work on snow leopard conservation within the framework of international cooperation.