Breakthrough in artificially breeding rare snow leopards in China
Big cat cub has survived 17 months, easily breaking a record for the longest living snow leopard bred using artificial insemination on the mainland
A 17-month-old snow leopard has broken a record to become the longest living artificially bred cub of its species in China, state media reported.
The female named “Aoxue” is on display at the Xining Wildlife Zoo in Qinghai province, the state-run news agency Xinhua reported.
China established a research centre at the zoo in the 1980s to study the possibility of artificially breeding endangered snow leopards, which live at altitudes above 3,500 metres on the Tibetan plateau.
Previous human attempts to help the big cat reproduce through artificial insemination had, however, not proved successful.
All 13 cubs the Xining zoo had seen born died within a year.