Twycross Zoo, Snow Leopard Cubs and Conservation

I went to Twycross Zoo in Warwickshire with a friend recently, I was really excited about going there after wanting to visit their snow leopard cubs for a while. In April 2017 Irma gave birth to her cubs, the female cubs Ceba and Eva play an important role in their international breeding programme. We had a brilliant afternoon watching the cubs, they were so playful and kept chasing each other on the rocks.

I have always been passionate about wildlife and conservation, snow leopards are one of the beautiful big cats that need our help in the wild. Due to things such as the bones and skin being used for medicine, being hunted for their coats and poaching snow leopards are a vulnerable species. There is still some hope for snow leopards in the wild, in September 2017 the International Union for Conservation of Nature announced that snow leopards are not endangered. One of the conservation organisations that has helped is the Snow Leopard Trust, they do a variety of projects to protect leopards including helping families and farmers that live near the leopard's habitat. Due to their habitat being destroyed sometimes snow leopards go after livestock which is one of the reasons why they are poached by farmers. Organisations such as the Snow Leopard Trust give snow leopards some hope for the future. For more information on the projects they are involved in please visit www.snowleopard.org