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Local residents had gathered on the beach just beyond a cordon of caution tape to catch a sight of the mountain cat.

The Chinese mountain cat—with its sky-blue eyes, sandy coat, and unusual lack of markings—is so elusive that it wasn’t photographed in the wild until 2007.

Was the Chinese mountain cat involved?

As part of the 2017 effort that elevated the status of the Chinese mountain cat, he says the feline’s distinctive appearance and relatively ancient origin are reasons enough to make it its own species.

And an influx of people into the Tibetan Plateau since the 1950s has led to a surge of domestic cats—which appear to be interbreeding with the Chinese mountain cat, potentially corrupting its genome.