KarmaQuest
This wild snow leopard was seen by members of KarmaQuest's snow leopard trek in Ladakh, northern Indian Himalayas. Photo by Brian Keating.
KarmaQuest Ecotourism and Adventure Travel has been collaborating with the Snow Leopard Conservancy (SLC) for a number of years on its winter and summer tracking trips to Ladakh in the northern Indian Himalayas.
The KarmaQuest trips have had a fabulous record of team members seeing the snow leopard in the wild. During a 2008 season trip the group of eight members, observed a snow leopard on a kill for more than an hour.
KarmaQuest snow leopard trip members with Dr Rodney Jackson. Photo Dr Rodney jackson.
The treks are often accompanied by Dr Rodney Jackson, founder and director of the SLC who was recently nominated for the 2010 Indianapolis Prize for endangered species conservation. Rodney was the first snow leopard researcher to capture and collar snow leopards for radio tracking in the early 1980’s. This project gave the world a huge amount of first time information on this elusive animal living in remote and often inaccessible areas.
The beautiful Rumbak valley in Ladakh. Photo John and Cathy Yee.
Another highlight of this trip is the ancient Buddhist culture of Ladakh and staying with local people in homestay accommodation at the tiny village of Rumbak where farmers and herders are working with the SLC to develop community-based conservation and ecotourism programs to help protect the snow leopard and its prey species, as well as their natural habitats.
A tax deductible part (in the US) of trip costs goes to SLC-India Trust’s work towards supporting communities in this area committing to not harming rare wildlife in exchange for receiving training in setting up homestays and in nature guiding. This training has supported the innate knowledge and hospitality of the people into income-generating livelihoods through ecotourism. Read more about how the SLC set up the community-based ecotourism program in this part of India on their website here.
For current KarmaQuest snow leopard trek dates and itineraries see their website.
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