Infrared cameras mounted by volunteers in northwest China made it possible for humans to observe rare snow leopards up close without disturbing them.
Ruling the mountains for millennia, the snow leopard's strong build allows it to scale steep slopes with ease.
Its spots change with the seasons and its hind legs give the snow leopard the ability to leap six times the length of its body.
But hope has been rekindled after footage emerged of snow leopards, found in central and south east Asia, roaming Tianshan Mountain Range in northwest China.
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The footage was recorded by volunteers who had mounted more than 100 infrared cameras in the mountain range to capture these rare images.
Xing Rui is head of the volunteer research team that mounted the cameras.
He said he was surprised by what the footage revealed.
"Data gathered by end April has shown that we have recorded more than 20 heads of snow leopards in this area," he said.
Snow leopards are long known as solitary animals, hiding away in mountains and usually above the snow line.
Xing Rui said better government protection of the local habitat could be one reason behind an increase in sightings and possibly numbers.
"We can see how well and how important the protection of the forest in the eastern Tianshan Mountain Range, the protection of ecosystem and animals are," he said.
"It's very clear that the protections are very very good, or we would not see so many snow leopards."
It's estimated that there are about 5000 wild snow leopards roaming mountain ranges in 12 countries in Central and South Asia.
The World Wide Fund for Nature says the sole predator of snow leopards remains humans with hunting and habitat loss the main reasons the snow leopard is now listed as an endangered species.
