I find the whole story misleading at best: having the 'composite' (fake) images next to captions explaining that this is a snow leopard at 17,014 ft (5185 meters) is dishonest.
She thought she could get away with it but backtracked a few days later after it got out of hands.
We don't know when this first disclaimer was orignially published / added though.
And I would let people make their own decision whether they think her publication is misleading or not:
https://kittiyapawlowski.com/snow-leopard-series
edit: her disclaimer also reads like it was more reactive rather than precautionary: "I never stated my images were not edited anywhere".