Chinese police issue safety alert as black bear swims across China-Russia border river

A young black bear recently swam across the China-Russia border river and reached the Qinghuangyutong Island in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, prompting local border police to issue a timely safety warning.

The bear, approximately 1.5 meters long and weighing around 100 kg, is believed to have been on a seasonal migration with its population.

It crossed over from an island on the Russian side of the Amur River, known as Heilongjiang River in China. Chinese border police identified the animal and issued a public safety alert to minimize the risk of human-wildlife encounters.

The rare footage of a family of three snow leopards, including a cub playing with a stick, was released recently after being captured by infrared cameras at the Helan Mountain National Nature Reserve in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

The footage shows the three snow leopards briefly appeared together on a rocky hillside before the male walked off into the distance. In another clip, the cub played with a stick, walking around and occasionally lying down, while the female watched nearby.

"The cub is now almost the same size as an adult leopard. It is nearly one and a half years old and has adapted very well to the Helan Mountain environment. It is growing up very healthily," said a staff member of the administration bureau of the Helan Mountain National Nature Reserve.

The snow leopard is a first-class nationally protected wild animal in China, and its survival is an important indicator of the health of high-altitude ecosystems.

To protect its habitat, the reserve has continued to track individual snow leopards through field patrols and infrared camera inspections, accumulating rich data for species protection and scientific research.

To date, five individual snow leopards have been monitored in the reserve.