Wow, great news. Snow Leopard Enterprises has won the BBC Worlld Challenge. It was considered an innovative business model that also benefits the environment. The program helps herders in Mongolia make and sell fine wool handicrafts to increase their income. In turn, herders sign conservation contracts pledging to protect snow leopards living in their area.

  “Snow Leopard Enterprise works with over 250 families in Mongolia to protect snow leopards and improve the quality of life for herder families,” says Brad Rutherford , Executive Director of the Snow Leopard Trust , who visited with program participants in August. In 2010, every pledge to protect snow leopards was upheld and snow leopards were kept safe across over 25 communities. “Through Snow Leopard Enterprises, we’re improving the conservation status of snow leopards across roughly 50,000 square kilometers of prime snow habitat in Mongolia ,” says Rutherford , “and thanks to the World Challenge we’ve been able to increase recognition and support for this important program.”

 More than 600 proposals were submitted to World Challenge in 2011, from which a panel of judges selected 12 projects to compete. According to BBC World News, over 70,000 voted were cast for the 12 projects and the top three winners were chosen based solely on the number of public votes.

 With the most number of votes, Snow Leopard Enterprises earned the coveted top spot in the competition. As a first place winner, the Snow Leopard Trust will receive a cash prize of $20,000 to advance conservation for snow leopards and Snow Leopard Enterprises will be featured in international versions of Newsweek Magazine and on BBC World News.

Just a reminder if you haven’t voted in the BBC World Challenge the Snow Leopard Enterprises are in the competition and would love to have your vote. This fabulous project supported by the Snow Leopard Trust helps local women sell handicrafts and earn income and help protect the magnificent snow leopard that shares their Mongolian habitat.

Vote now (before midnight 11 November) and the project stands to win publicity and finacial support. Thanks folks

Happy Mongolian boy with a craft toy made by women in the Snow Leopard Enterprise scheme. Photo SLT.

One of my favorite Snow Leopard conservation projects is a finalist in the BBC World Challenge Competition.

Please vote for Mongolian Snow Leopard Enterprises  This wonderful organisation helps save snow leopards in Mongolia by providing villagers with income producing alternatives so that they do not poach the endangered cats. Women all across central Asia are being taught skills to produce beautiful crafts sold by the Snow Leopard Trust, giving them incomes for their families. It’s a great project and would be a wonderful reward to the women of Mongolia and snow leopard conservationists to win this. Vote here now and help snow leopards win this prize. You can vote till 10th November.

Intriguing candid photo of two snow leopards captured by a remote camera in Mongolia. I wonder what they are up to? Photo SLT and Panthera.

The Snow Leopard Trust’s (SLT) long term research project in Mongolia (partnering with Mongolian agencies and Panthera) is raising money by asking people to adopt one of the remote sensor cameras they’ve set up in the South Gobi province to film snow leopards in this beautiful region.

This is a lovely way to support ground-breaking work never before done in such an intensive way in any snow leopard habitat. You’ll see the candid shots of snow leopards going about their daily lives. Snow leopards are shy and secretive but these hidden cameras are revealing new information about them, much of it never known before. Share with the SLT researchers the candid smiles and yawns of snow leopards and see their prey from a ‘cats point of view.’

As a donor you’ll receive a package including a map showing the location of this year’s camera study, a CD with the black and white photographs from your camera and a special bound guide to help you identify the various animals your camera photographed.

If you like the idea of adopting a camera and help support this important project go to the SLT website.

The Panthera SLT Long Term Ecological Study of snow leopards in Mongolia. This map shows the distance and movement of some of the cats with electronic collars.

Electronic surveillance has been in the news a lot lately lately with illegal happenings in the Murdoch UK newspaper empire. But one place where surveillance is OK is in the work researchers do in snow leopard habitat.

Snow leopards are so notoriously shy that the use of camera traps (which are set off by the cat’s nearby movement) is one of the best ways to learn more about them and their habits.

This week an article in the NY Times quotes Dr. Tom McCarthy, director of  Panthera’s snow leopard program as saying that electronic eavesdropping brings up all sorts of new information about the way snow leopards live. ” Evidence of two cats sitting together to eat dinner was quite a shock to us,” Dr. McCarthy said. “Beyond mating and mother-cub relationships, snow leopards are supposed to be solitary,” he said.

Dr Tom McCarthy. Photo Panthera.

This is fascinating news and also supports the idea some zoos now have that snow leopards sharing exhibit areas may be happier than those that don’t. See our recent Guest Blog on Zoo studies on social nature of snow leopards in captivity.

Panthera, the Snow Leopard Conservation Fund (Mongolia) and the Snow Leopard Trust are doing a Long Term Ecological Study of snow leopards, the very first of its kind, in Mongolia. We look forward to more information like this to give the world a better picture of how these cats live.

Ganaa the Mongolian herder who is taking a keen interest in snow leopard conservation with the Panthera / Snow Leopard Trust research team. Photo Barbara Blywise.

Ganaa is a herder from a small community in Mongolian snow leopard habitat of the Tost Mountains. Here Panthera and Snow Leopard Trust are doing a world first long-term snow leopard research project. Ganna lives in a tent nearby and makes his living from a herd of domestic livestock. Traditionally herders like Ganaa and the snow leopard would have been arch enemies as often the cats killed herders livestock. But this time the research team on site invited Ganaa to see how they worked. The SLT reports, “ We wanted Ganna to witness for himself why we are studying snow leopards. He became the first herder present during the collaring of a wild snow leopard and he was incredibly touched by the event. When we offered him the chance to pick a name for the snow leopard, he honored the cat with the name of his daughter Jade or Khashaa in Mongolian. Ganna linked the fate of his family to the fate of this snow leopard and he has been back to check on Khashaa ever since. More-over, Ganaa has become an ambassador for snow leopard conservation throughout his community.” A lovely story showing humans and top predators like snow leopards can live harmoniously together.  read more about this research project.

Beautiful Mongolian landscape, significant snow leopard habitat.

Regular readers of this Blog will recall that last month there was a successful campaign to convince the government of Mongolia to overturn a decision to allow the killing of four snow leopards for ‘research’ purposes. This was a hugely important decision and could not have been achieved without the hard work and dedicated lobbying of many people, including many Mongolian folks on the ground. I’d like to take the opportunity to acknowledge all those I haven’t mentioned in this Blog before – it was an incredible effort of which you can all be proud and supporters of snow leopards everywhere thank you.

Charu Mishra, Executive Director of Snow Leopard Network and his senior management team,

Mr. A. Enkhbat, Director General, Sustainable Development and Strategic Planning Department, Ministry of Nature, Environment and Tourism, Mongolia

Mr. D. Enkhbat, Director, Department of Environment and Natural Resources, Ministry of Nature, Environment and Tourism, Mongolia

Mr. D. Batbold, Director, International Co-operation Department, Ministry of Nature, Environment and Tourism, Mongolia

Ms. A Bayarjargal, Ms. Purevjav Lkhagvajav and other staff of Snow Leopard Trust/Snow Leopard Conservation Fund, Mongolia

Dr. B Lkhagvasuren, Onon and other staff of WWF Mongolia

Dr. Amanda Fines, Enkhtuvshin, Odonchimeg, and other staff of Wildlife Conservation Society Mongolia

Mr. S. Damdinsuren of the Mongolian Foundation for the Protection of Animals

Dr. D. Munkhtsog,Mr. Naranbaatar, Adya and other staff of the Institute of Biology, Mongolia

Mr. Shagdarsuren D, National Mongolian Radio

Congratulations to all of you and we all look forward to continuing good news about snow leopard conservation programs in Mongolia.

Dr Tom McCarthy.Photo Panthera.

News just in this morning from Dr Tom McCarthy from Panthera.

Tom writes to over 3500 people who signed their petition  – “Thanks to your help in signing and sharing Panthera’s petition, the Mongolian government has just announced the cancellation of the planned hunting of at least four snow leopards – and possibly many more – for scientific ‘research’.

We congratulate the Mongolian Government for considering the input from so many Mongolian and international scientists and NGO’s, including Panthera, and listening to the voices of people around the world, in making what we firmly believe is the right decision.

As we celebrate this exciting achievement, we must still remember that the snow leopard remains endangered, with just 3,500-7,000 individuals remaining in the wild across 12 countries in Asia.

Well done Panthera! And well done the Snow Leopard Network, the Snow Leopard Trust and the Snow Leopard Conservancy. I know many of these folks worked tirelessly the last week to lobby the Mongolian government. Without their work more of our beautiful and rare cats would have been senselessly killed.

If any readers would like to make a donation to snow leopard conservation at this time please do so – Panthera, Snow Leopard Conservancy or Snow Leopard Trust. They rely on donations to be able to do work like this when it is critically needed.

Thanks again to all who signed the petition, snow leopards are grateful! Best regards, Sibylle.

Famous snow leopard conservationist and Vice President of Panthera, Dr George Schaller is asking the Mongolian government to overturn the decision allowing killing of 4 snow leopards. Photo WCS.

The Mongolian government announced 4 snow leopards (and possibly more) could be hunted and killed for ‘research purposes’. Snow leopard conservationists everywhere are shocked as Mongolia has been at the forefront of conserving the endangered cats in Asia.

Conservation agency Panthera, which is leading collaborative and groundbreaking research in the South Gobi region of Mongolia, has launched a petition to lobby the government to overturn this decision.

Please lend your voice to this urgent matter and sign the petition here.

Dr Tom McCarthy, Executive Director Snow Leopard Program, Panthera, and world renowned snow leopard expert, working in Mongolia. McCarthy is actively lobbying the Mongolian government to overturn the decision allowing four snow leopards to be killed for 'research purposes.' Photo Panthera/SLT.

These days there are many effective ways to study the rare cats like radio collaring, DNA collection of scat and remote camera photography. Mongolian and international researchers have successfully employed these methods to protect the cats and build community support for their long-term survival. Killing the animals for research is absolutely not necessary.

Take a moment and join famous snow leopard conservations like George Schaller and Tom McCarthy to help stop the killing of beautiful endangered snow leopards – sign the petition now.

Mongolia, a snow leopard image on a trap camera. Photo by SLT and Panthera.

The Snow Leopard Trust has announced the Ministry of Geology and Mineral Resources have approved important snow leopard habitat in the Tost Mountains of southern Mongolia as official “Local Protected Area”. The SLT and the community lobbied hard in the face of many licenses for mining exploration in the area. It took three applications but now at the end of 2010 it’s good news for snow leopards. Congratulations to the Trust for its fine GPS radio collar research in Mongolia and now this important win to help save snow leopard habitat. A wonderful way to end 2010 for snow leopards in Mongolia.