A big cat conservation group has captured footage of an extremely rare mountain cat that is native to the high Andes. <\/p>\n
Big Cat Rescue captured the video on a trail camera showing an Andean mountain cat with her kitten as the pair explored their high-altitude home. <\/p>\n
\u201cWith their thick coats and adorable faces, it\u2019s hard to believe these beautiful cats are also among the most endangered in the world,\u201d writes Big Cat Rescue<\/a>. \u201cThanks to our partners, the Pampas Working Group and Quecha Women for Conservation, we get a glimpse into their secret lives \u2014 and a reminder of why protecting their fragile habitat is so important.\u201d <\/p>\n It took three years of monitoring the elusive Andean wild cats, but the hard work paid off: capturing video of the felines in their natural habitat. The cats lives at elevations from 6,000 feet to 13,000 feet. They are native to Peru, Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina. <\/p>\n The Andean mountain cat is described as \u201cghostlike\u201d because of its elusive nature. It is roughly the same size as a housecat but far more striking. According to the Andean Cat Alliance<\/a>, it is \u201cconsidered the most threatened feline in the Americas and is counted among the five most endangered cats in the world.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cThe Andean cat is a mostly nocturnal species, but will also venture out at dusk\u201d the Alliance adds. \u201cIt needs large areas to live in, with the habitat of some males reaching the size of 5,000 soccer fields. The species has very low population density, and it is estimated that throughout its distribution range there are fewer than 2,177 adult individuals\u201d<\/p>\n Trail cameras are great for capturing footage of rare cats. The images, often captured by non-profits, help spread awareness of the species\u2019 plight to more people. Earlier this year, PetaPixel reported on the Indus Fishing Cat Project, which caught images of an Asiatic caracal and a sand cat<\/a>. Very little is known about the Pakistani sand cat, the smallest of all wildcats, and it is listed as \u201cpossibly extinct\u201d by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).<\/p>\n This year, trail cameras have also captured pictures of the evasive Pallas\u2019 cat<\/a>, and the rare Asian golden cat<\/a> in southern Thailand. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A big cat conservation group has captured footage of an extremely rare mountain cat that is native to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":149211,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[84658,33402,84659,84660,1664,84661,60832,61,60,84662,84663,3738,84495,82,84664,66435,263],"class_list":{"0":"post-149210","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-andeanmountaincat","9":"tag-andes","10":"tag-andesmountains","11":"tag-bigcat","12":"tag-conservation","13":"tag-elusive","14":"tag-feline","15":"tag-ie","16":"tag-ireland","17":"tag-mountaincat","18":"tag-mountains","19":"tag-nature","20":"tag-remotecamera","21":"tag-science","22":"tag-trailcamera","23":"tag-wildcat","24":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149210"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149210\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/149211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}