Grumpy wild mountain cat seen on trail camera high in Himalayas for first time
In the Himalayas, when the elevation surpasses 8,000 feet, it starts to get hard to breathe.
As you continue to climb, the air gets even thinner and barely anything is seen growing or living that high above the rest of the world.
But while this environment would be unsurvivable for most, a small, fluffy creature has just been spotted high in the mountains for the very first time.
In a “groundbreaking” survey from WWF-India and the Forest Department, Government of Arunachal Pradesh, India, trail cameras have captured the first-ever footage of an “elusive” Pallas’s cat at staggering altitudes, according to a Sept. 9 news release from WWF.
“Between July and September 2024, WWF-India deployed 136 camera traps in 83 locations across (772 square miles) of rugged high-altitude rangelands in West Kameng and Tawang districts, making it one of the most extensive wildlife monitoring exercises,” the organization said. “The camera traps were kept active for over eight months, often in extreme weather and remote, difficult-to-access terrain.”
The traps captured the Pallas’s cat at 16,377 feet above sea level, according to the release, just below the “absolute global maximum.”
While not an endangered species, “this cold-adapted cat is one of the most elusive, rarely photographed and therefore remains one of the least studied feline species,” researchers said.
The photograph confirms a range extension into the eastern Himalayas after records in India, Bhutan and eastern Nepal, according to the release.
Pallas’s cats have short legs and very thick fur that make them look stocky and stuck with a perpetual pouty face, according to the Pallas’s cat International Conservation Alliance, or PICA.
Their coloration allows them to blend in to their rocky and snowy environment, and flat ears prevent them from giving away their hiding place, PICA says.
The cats raise their young in dens and are most active at dawn and dusk, according to PICA.
But it wasn’t the only significant feline find.
The survey marked the highest elevation record for the common leopard, the clouded leopard and the marble cat, according to the release.
Other species, like the Himalayan wood owl and the grey-headed flying squirrel were also seen higher than ever before, researchers said.
The trail cameras also documented known species doing something never seen before.
“In a rare behavioural observation, the camera traps documented a snow leopard and a common leopard scent-marking at the same location, offering fresh insight into how these big cats share fragile alpine habitats,” WWF said.
Big cats, like domestic cats, will mark their scents to announce their presence and outline their territory, raising questions about how these two different species may interact in the Himalayas.
Members of the Brokpa herding community were also photographed with their livestock, showing humans and these mountain creatures living alongside one another, WWF said.
“The discovery of Pallas’s cat in Arunachal Pradesh at nearly (16,404 feet) is a powerful reminder of how little we still know about life in the high Himalayas. That a landscape can support snow leopards, clouded leopards, marbled cats and now Pallas’s cat alongside vibrant pastoral traditions speaks to its extraordinary richness and resilience,” Rishi Kumar Sharma, head of science and conservation for the WWF-India Himalayas program, said in the release.
Arunachal Pradesh is a disputed region in the Himalayan mountains along the India-China border. Although India controls the region, both India and China claim it. The region is about 1,300 miles east of New Delhi and about 3,200 miles southwest of Shanghai.
This story was originally published September 18, 2025 at 12:59 PM with the headline "Grumpy wild mountain cat seen on trail camera high in Himalayas for first time."
