Her reaching 1 year of age was regarded as a sign of success at that time, because the mortality rate among leopard newborns is very high in the first months after they are born.

"She is the result of our efforts for years," Qi said. "I was so excited that I wanted to keep a record of her growth so that more people would learn how difficult it is to protect snow leopards."

Qi created a topic for Aoxue Princess on the micro-blogging platform Sina Weibo on which he posts videos and pictures of the animal's growth, and it has attracted more than 70 million views.

The park has several other snow leopards rescued from the wild. They are kept there because they are old, weak or sick and cannot survive in the wild.

In March last year, the park rescued a wild snow leopard that made a good recovery and was released back into the wild not long after.

As it walked out into the wild, it turned back to look at its saviors and then ran off into the distance, Qi said.