Fortunately, after years in captivity, thanks to the efforts of Dr. Victor Lukarevsky and his team they are saved. But the biggest challenge for rescuers now was to rehabilitate these feral cats and return them to where they belong, in the wild. Despite the fact that they have been incarcerated for 4 years (a great amount of time for a wild animal, especially a lynx whose lifespan is around 15 years), Lukarevsky was still hopeful as they were born in the wild. Dr. Lukarevsky and wildlife cameraman Gordon Buchanan filmed the lynx’s long rehabilitation journey on the BBC series Snow Cats and Me. “When I visited, I thought there was no way to restore the health of these animals and rehabilitate them,” said Gordon Buchanan. “But Victor [Lukarevsky] pointed out that they were born in nature and therefore retained the same wild instincts.” The hardest part for the team is helping the rescued cats go wild and not trusting people. To survive in the harsh desert, they only had to depend on themselves and no one else. However, a big step had already been taken when the couple became parents again at the Urals rehabilitation center. Koshka gave birth to a litter of twins: Ivan and Aliona! “I think [they’re] possibly the two most beautiful creatures I’ve ever seen,” Gordon said when he saw the two-week-old kittens.Watch mother Lynx Koshka snuggle with Aliona, one of her two kittens!