It looks like the eye of a big cat said Ben Uncle Stephen nodded A very rare one he added A snow leopard cried Zoe Their uncle nodded and smiled Correct he said Ben gave a whistle They are extremely endangered he said And hardly ever seen by people He turned to Zoe Did you know their tails are as long as their bodies Zoe laughed Thank you Mr Encyclopedia she said But you forgot to mention they can carry up to three times their own weight She turned to their uncle So what happened to this snow leopard We have a computer program set to flag up certain key words on the Internet Uncle Stephen explained It flagged a blog from a mountaineer in Himachal Pradesh I know where that is Zoe said before Ben could open his mouth The Indian Himalayas Precisely Zoe Uncle Stephen said He brought up a
satellite map of India on the screen and pointed toward a line of jagged white peaks running across the top corner I’ve been checking on the blog for a week now Erika said pointing Erika clicked on a post halfway down the page The mountaineer has been staying in a village called Ribek and climbing in the peaks a few miles west from there she said While he was climbing he caught a glimpse of a snow leopard sleeping in a rock shelter Lucky him said Ben Hardly anyone gets to see one Not just one Erika said Four A mother and three cubs She clicked a button on the keyboard Here’s a photo he put up on his blog An image of a large leopard and three fuzzy cubs popped up on the screen The mother leopard slept with her tail wrapped around her three sleeping cubs Her fur was covered in a beautiful pattern of dark circular spots with lighter fur in the middle
Aw Zoe said They’re so cute I estimate the cubs to be four or five months old their uncle said The mountaineer called the mother Rani which means queen in Hindi
Three cubs is good said Zoe She’s helping to repopulate the species in that region If they all survive Uncle Stephen interjected He brought up the mountaineer’s blog on the screen His last blog post was was early this morning As the words appeared on the screen Ben and Zoe gasped in horror Yesterday there was a massive avalanche read Ben
