Photographing snow leopards with remote cameras in Afghanistan is hard enough, but snapping a picture of a mother and cub is nearly impossible.

Which is why a team of conservationists from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) was delighted to take this recent image from a craggy peak in Afghanistan’s Sarkund Valley. This is the first image of a mother and cub taken since WCS began work in the region. WCS has been conserving wildlife and improving local livelihoods in Afghanistan since 2006 with support from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).