A wildlife park in Scotland has held a birthday party for three snow leopard cubs as they turn one.
Highland Wildlife Park is home to five snow leopards; Animesh and Koshi and their three cubs, Maya, Padme and Yashin.
The trio were born on May 28 last year, and the park celebrated their first birthday with decorated boxes and a giant number one-shaped piñata full of their favourite tasty treats, and some hair from the park’s Bactrian camels for enrichment.
Enrichment, like different sights, smells and experiences, is an important part of the animals' daily care at the park, encouraging them to be more active and improving their mental and physical wellbeing.
Judith van de Voorde, senior carnivore keeper at Highland Wildlife Park, said, “We are all thrilled to wish Maya, Padme and Yashin a happy first birthday. They have settled in so well and are incredibly popular with visitors and staff alike, with their distinct personalities capturing hearts over the last year.
Like all the animals in our care, our snow leopards play an important role in attracting and engaging thousands of visitors each year so they can learn about the threats animals face in the wild and the action they can take to help. Their power to connect people with nature and encourage behaviour change is invaluable.”
Native to the mountain ranges of South and Central Asia, including the Himalayas, snow leopards are threatened due to a decline in available prey and conflict with local farmers. Thankfully, they are now protected throughout much of their native range.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here