A beautiful snow leopard sleeps in her wild home in the Indian Himalayas. Photo Sibylle Noras & Jigmet Dadull.

Who doesn’t?

Earlier this year I had the time of my life watching a snow leopard in the wild in Ladakh, India. I went on a fabulous trek with KarmaQuest and the Snow Leopard Conservancy to the Himalayan mountains in Hemis National Park and with the support and professional tracking of Jigmet Dadul and his team we found a magnificent female cat on our 7th day and spent the entire day observing her.

Snow leopards are rare and elusive; many biologists have studied them for decades and only caught a glimpse or two of the cats. So believe me it is an amazing experience and a privilege to see one in the wild. This trip is being offered again in February (6th to 22nd 2012) and my friend from KarmaQuest, Wendy Lama tells me there are still two places left to join this group.

Don’t miss this opportunity to see a snow leopard in its own wild habitat and contribute to snow leopard conservation in Ladakh. Led by a Ladakhi snow leopard expert wildlife spotter, assisted by trained local scouts and a high-powered telescope in camp, you’ll have the best set of eyes prowling the landscape for you. You’ll also stay with a Ladakhi family in a Himalayan Homestay where you get to share the local way of life, meeting villagers and sharing their food and swapping stories.

Part of the trip cost is a donation (in many cases tax deductible) which directly supports snow leopard conservation in Ladakh through the Snow Leopard Conservancy India Trust. The folks at the SLCIT are hard working and dedicated and passionate. Its due to their work with ecotourism development programs that benefit and inspire the Ladakhi people to protect snow leopards that make it possible for the cats to thrive in this part of the Himalayas today.

If you’ve always had a dream to see a snow leopard in the wild, go with this group. Each winter group for the last four years has seen a cat, so without a doubt this will be the best chance you’ll get.

Dr Som Ale searching for snow leopards in the rugged region of Mustang in western Nepal. Photo SLC.

The Kathmandu Post reported today that a census of snow leopard has started in Mustang district, a remote part of western Nepal which is believed to be snow leopard habitat.

“Conservationists say this is the first time a snow leopard census is being conducted in the country.
Nine video cameras have been installed in several areas, including Jomsom, Muktinath temple and Lubra, to count the endangered species. The moderately large cats are found along the northern frontiers in Nepal, mainly in Mustang, Mugu, Dolpa and Humla.

Snow leopard specialists Karan Shah and Dr. Som Ale and Rajkumar Gurung are part of the campaign initiated by National Trust for Nature Conservation, Annapurna Conservation Area Project and other organisations.

“The census aims to find the exact population of snow leopards and conserve them. We believe it will help bring awareness about conservation of leopards among people,” said Ale.  He said the population of snow leopards would be ascertained within two months. The cameras were installed in the areas situated from the altitude of 4,000-5,000 meters and two persons have been deployed to look after each camera.

According to Dr. Ale, 300 to 500 snow leopards are found in Nepal at the height of 5,000 to 6,000 meters and their number is rapidly declining.” Article by Shiva Sharma.

Team commemorates opening of Mount Noshaq to climbers. Anthony Simms from WCS Afghanistan. Photo WCS.

After the recent good news of remote cameras photographing more snow leopards in Afhganistan comes another piece of good news. The country’s highest mountain, Mount Noshaq (7492 metres) is again open to the mountaineering community after many years closure due to conflict and insecurity.

Mount Noshaq is located in important snow leopard habitat in the Hindu Kush Mountains of the Wakhan Corridor. Other important species on the mountain are Marco Polo sheep, urial and ibex (wild goat), all snow leopard prey.

Afghani villagers at conservation education program. Photo Haqiq Rahman WCS.

The Wildlife Conservation Society’s Afghanistan Program Technical Advisor, Anthony Simms commemorated the opening with a climbing expedition a few weeks ago. He was accompanied by a team, which included Tim Wood (the first Australian to reach the summit) and Aziz Beg (only the third Afghan national to reach the summit).

During the 1970’s Afghanistan was a major destination for many young international tourists going across Asia to Europe and I was one of those, spending 5 wonderful weeks there one winter. I’m so delighted that this area, with snow leopards, is now safe again.

Recent camera trap photo of snow leopard in Afghanistan suggests more cats in the Wakhan region than previously thought.Photo WCS.

“This expedition marks the revival of a once popular tourist site that was forgotten during the country’s political unrest,” said Peter Zahler, Deputy Director of WCS’s Asia Program. “Despite the turmoil that continues in some parts of the country, Wakhan is just one of a number of areas in Afghanistan that are very safe from a security standpoint, and where tourism is already providing jobs and improved livelihoods for local people while providing an incentive to protect the country’s fragile environment and wildlife.”

Well done WCS! They are are working with over 50 local communities across the country to help management of natural resources and building community conservation programs that protect wildlife and improve villagers’ livelihoods. They’ve trained 59 community rangers to monitor snow leopards and other species and supporting conservation education in schools. More information see WCS Afghanistan Program.

Himalayan tahr, a key snow leopard prey, have a new home at Taronga Zoo in Sydney. Photo Cameron Richardson, Daily Telegraph.

The Himalayan tahr is an ungulate or wild goat that shares snow leopard habitat in the rugged wooded hills and mountain slopes of the Himalayas in Nepal, India and Tibet. They are key snow leopard prey in this region and in summer graze in high pastures, then come down the mountains and form herds in the winter. Tahr have very small heads with large eyes and small pointed ears and red circles on their cheeks and are amazing rock climbers.

Taronga Zoo in Sydney has just built a new 3m-high walkway where visitors can get close to the tahr while admiring the stunning view of Sydney Harbour. The snow leopards at the Zoo are nearby and visitors can see both animals on this boardwalk.

Telengit community of Altai mountains in southern Russia are fighting a gas pipelines which threatens them and endangered animals like snow leopards. Photo Cultural Survival.

According to Jennifer Castner, Director of the Altai Project, a gas pipeline project between the Russian and Chinese governments is proposing to export natural gas from here to northwestern China.”The pipeline threatens a UNESCO World Heritage Site, national parks, and sacred lands. The Telengit people and Russian environmental organizations are calling on the international community for help to stop construction of this gas pipeline on the sacred Ukok Plateau.”

Altaians and the Telengit feel a strong connection to their land, shown here.
This video tells the story of Slava Cheltuev, a Telengit community leader and shaman from the Altai’s high altitude Kosh Agach district.

Now the local Telengit people are so concerned about the negative impact of the pipeline they are keen to get a meeting with Russia’s President Medvedev.

The UNESCO World Heritage Site is the Golden Mountains of Altai, which has been identified as cultural and environmental importance not only to the local Altains but also for the whole world community. The mountains being a vital habitat for endangered animal species like the snow leopard and argali sheep also influenced the decision by UNESCO.

The Altai Project is working with partners to help the Telengit and Russian environmental groups reroute the pipeline. The Altai seems far away, I know it seemed that way to me, but once I had a chance to see it and learn about it, I realised how important and special a place it is. You can read more and support this important issue through the Altai Project and their partners.

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.

A closeup of a detailed snow leopard rock carving from the Iron Age in Upper Tibet. We can clearly see the rosettes or spots of the cat. Copyright John Vincent Bellezza.

Petroglyphs are rock carvings made by many different cultures around the world since ancient times. People would use sharp stones and other tools to carve drawings into stone to record events and their world. The word comes from the Greek ‘petros’, meaning stone and the word ‘glyphein’, meaning to carve.

John Vincent Bellezza is Senior Research Fellow at the Tibet Center, University of Virginia, and Charlotteville, Virginia. A highly esteemed scholar and explorer, John has spent more than two decades studying Zhang Zhung, the ancient culture of western and northwestern Tibet, which was associated with the Bon religion, before the introduction of Buddhism.

John Bellezza has spent many years on painstaking research surveying rock art in Tibet. Copyright John Vincent Bellezza.

His studies included researching petroglyphs in remote mountain ruins and rock outcrops. One day he found these enchanting carvings. We can only surmise who would have made them and why but today they speak to us across thousands of years telling a story, a myth or a legend of snow leopards that some-one, all those years ago, felt was important.

I was in touch with John a few months ago and he’s very kindly agreed to share his snow leopard petroglyph photos with readers of Saving Snow Leopard Blog.

“These snow leopard petroglyhps were found in Uppper Tibet and they date from prehistoric times, probably the Iron Age (around the 10^th to 7^th century BCE).

One is a lovely close up of a snow leopard and the other a snow leopard with gaping jaws in pursuit of two wild ungulates (sheep or goats), with a crescent moon as well. We might surmise that this petroglyph depicts a dawn or dusk hunting scene, given the relative position of the moon.

Photo of a snow leopard rock carving from iron Age Upper Tibet. Copyright John Vincent Bellezza.

In Tibetan the snow leopard is called sa’u. It is the undisputed king of the alpine and aeolian biomes of Tibet. (Aeolian biomes are the zone of the highest life, a zone based on atmospheric nutrients, a zone of the wind as first described by L. W. Swan). The snow leopard is noted in Tibetan ritual literature as belonging to the entourage of important mountain gods. These ancestral and protective deities are said to keep fierce carnivores such as the wolf, brown bear and the snow leopard like ordinary mortals keep sheep and goats. The oldest cultural record for the snow leopard is found in Upper Tibet, a land of vast plains crisscrossed by lofty mountain ranges that run perpendicular to the Himalayan Range. This is the rock art record, prehistoric carvings in stone of snow leopards. It is not clear if these depictions of solitary snow leopards represent biological or numinous (that is the spiritual) forms of the animal. Perhaps this great carnivore was rendered in both guises.”

A petroglyph, this one a large wild sheep with huge horns carved 2000 years ago on rock in Altai, southern Russia. Photo Sibylle Noras.

Thanks very much for sharing these John. During my 2010 snow leopard trip to Altai in Russia I became interested in petroglyphs after seeing many rock carvings on the steppe near Koch Agash where we were researching snow leopard habitat. I found lots of ibex (wild goat) petroglyphs but sadly no snow leopards. Kyrgyzstan has petroglyphs of snow leopards too, at the Issyk Kul Open Air museum in Cholpon Ata and there’s a very special rock with an image of a tamed snow leopard used by nomads in a hunt much like ancient Egyptians used to use tame cheetah. Amazing!

John’s two latest volumes, Antiquities of Zhang Zhung, have just been published and are online at  www.thlib.org/bellezza.

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.

Oleg and Irina Lognov's book Irbis - Snow Leopard to support the work of snow leopard conservation in Kazakhstan.

We haven’t written much about the snow leopards of Kazakhstan in this blog as there has been little conservation or research work done there in the past. This is rapidly changing.

“IRBIS – The Snow Leopard” about Kazakhstan’s rare snow leopards has just been published in English. Written by biologists Oleg and Irina Loginov this book was previously only available in Russian. It is a major initiative of Kazakhstan’s “Snow Leopard Fund” (Ust Kamenogorsk) with the financial support of the UN (UNDP/GEF).  The snow leopard is an important symbol in the history of the country and now efforts are being made to help its survival in the Kazakhstan part of the Altai-Sayan ecoregion which has for many years been known to be snow leopard habitat but has had few conservation or community development efforts focused there.

The beautiful mountains of Central Asia, snow leopard habitat in Kazakhstan

Oleg says, “In Kazakh public consciousness the snow leopard is often called “The Master of Celestial Mountains”, and it is a predator never attacking people. Snow leopard protection is still insufficient – more than 90 % of habitats of a snow leopard are not covered by especially protected natural territories.” Oleg believes snow leopards require more protected reserves in Kazakhstan. “All places of snow leopard habitat in mountains, as a rule, have no intensive economic activities, therefore can quite become extensive natural parks or game reserves.”

Oleg says the book has been written with great emotion and “is entertaining and accessible to the widest audience. It can be used as manual for schoolboys and students, and for the foreign tourists, wishing to learn more about a live symbol of “Celestial Mountains”, and in general for people loving the nature.”

The unique photos of a wild snow leopard in the book were taken in Almaty area in Dzungarian Ala-Tau (Kazakhstan) by Renat Minibaev. There are also beautiful snow leopard portraits by Raphael Kettsian from Ekaterinburg (Russia), and also water colour drawings by Victor Bakhtin, Victor Pavlushin and Oleg Loginov. Irina Loginov’s fairy tale ”Spirits of Sacred Mountain” is also included in the edition, illustrated with drawings by the author.

Irbis is the Russian and Kazakh word for snow leopard.

Congratulations Oleg and all those concerned and we wish you well with your efforts to protect the snow leopards of Kazakhstan.

The beautiful Book is a limited edition publication available for $300. Contact Oleg – irbisslc@yandex.ru

A recent WCS study has found more snow leopards in Afghanistan's Wakhan corridor than previously thought to be in that area of snow leopard habitat. Photo WCS.

News from a recent snow leopard study in Afghanistan suggests the war torn nation may have a healthy cat population in the mountains of the northeastern Wakhan Corridor. The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), supported by USAID, used camera traps to photograph the solitary and shy cats. The study has been reported in the June 29 issue of the Journal of Environmental Studies and was conducted by WCS conservationists Anthony Simms, Zalmai Moheb, Salahudin, Hussain Ali, Inayat Ali and Timothy Wood. The scientists trained local rangers to position the camera technology at 16 locations in the vast mountain region. Anthony Simms says “The camera trapping that has been conducted in Wakhan to date has primarily been aimed at training our rangers to use the technology, not for scientific purposes. However, we are just preparing to commence a snow leopard mark-recapture survey across a large swathe of the Hindu Kush mountains.”

If indeed the photos show individual cats and not the same few leopards in many shots this is welcome news that after many years of conflict the cats have not been killed or chased away. The WCS is to be commended for this work as well as the involvement of local communities to benefit people and the snow leopards in this corner of snow leopard habitat. See more photos on Snow Leopard Network website.