January 2010

Want a long trek in the Himalayas? Curl up with a great read.

January 27, 2010 India

I’ve just finished a wonderful book about the Himalayas. Snow leopard country. It’s called “A long walk in the Himalayas – a trek from the Ganges to Kashmir” by Garry Weare. Weare’s story of his five-month trek from the sacred source of the Ganges through the Kullu Valley, remote mountains of Zanskar and Ladakh (known [...]

Read the full article →

Forest fires threaten snow leopards in Nepal

January 19, 2010 Nepal

Over the years I’ve heard of many different threats to the survival of snow leopards in the wild. In Nepal it now turns out that forest fires are also a threat to the cats. Last week a fire in the Annapurna Conservation Area Project (ACAP) broke out after two hotel porters threw marijuana stubs onto [...]

Read the full article →

Rare bird joins snow leopards in Afghanistan

January 19, 2010 Afghanistan

“Researchers for the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) have discovered for the first time the breeding area of the large-billed reed warbler — dubbed in 2007 as “the world’s least known bird species” — in the remote and rugged Wakhan Corridor of the Pamir Mountains of north-eastern Afghanistan. Situated between the mountainous regions of the Pamirs [...]

Read the full article →

"My grandmother says"….a story of snow leopards

January 13, 2010 Nepal

A few years ago after I returned from a trek in the Mustang region of western Nepal with a wonderful guide, Binod Rana, he introduced me to his brother, Dipak. Dipak was doing community work and fundraising for a school in a village in the Langtang region and I wondered what I could do to [...]

Read the full article →

Sleeping in a cave to save snow leopards and report on Himalayan climate change

January 12, 2010 Nepal

Navin Singh Khadka is an environmental journalist from Nepal with a keen interest in how climate change is affecting the Himalayas. Currently based in London, he is an Environment Reporter for BBC News. Navin has had some tough adventures doing his work. In today’s interview with The Nepal Monitor he not only talks about climate [...]

Read the full article →

Enjoying snow! Superacrobatic snow leopard!

January 9, 2010 Snow leopards in Zoos
Read the full article →

Herders leaving way of life as climate change affects them

January 8, 2010 Endangered species

With the Copenhagen conference late last year I posted a few stories on how climate change is affecting the Himalayas and in consequence the local people and the wildlife. Researchers recently found dramatic changes in Ladakh, northern India where nomads made their living for centuries herding goats, yak and sheep. They found that many herders [...]

Read the full article →

Russian borscht recipe…Russia is also home to snow leopards

January 6, 2010 Endangered species

Late last year when this blog celebrated its first birthday I said I’d cook a recipe from every country that has snow leopards (12 of them.) So far I’ve posted a Mongolian recipe – Buuz, a savoury pastry filled with meat and Tibetan Khapseys – a  Tibetan New Year bread like donut. Russia is another [...]

Read the full article →