At least 6 snow leopards found on the photos of camera traps just retrieved from remote Ravmeddara Gorge in Tajikistan. Photo Panthera.

Camera traps to collect snow leopard photos have now become routine but I can only imagine the excitement when researchers check what they’ve got on the cameras they retrieve after months out in the wild valleys and mountains.

A few days ago camera traps were retrieved in the mountains of Tajikistan after being set between November last year and April this year in the remote and beautiful Ravmeddara Gorge. And researchers were elated at what they found. Photos of six individual snow leopards and ibex, the wild goat that is good snow leopard prey.

Since 2008 traditional hunters have been supported by the Nature Protection Team, a Tajik NGO and the German government to establish community rangers. Their role was to stop the rampant poaching of ibex that had been going on.

Ibex, wild goat, photographed on camera trap in remote mountains of Tajikistan. Researchers found that the ibex population has increased since local people have become rangers and helped stop poaching. Photo Panthera.

Stefan Michel, wildlife expert of CIM-program with the Nature Protection Team, said “The evidence of the presence of such a large number of snow leopards shows that local people have successfully brought the ibex population back to a size which can support several snow leopard families.”

Now researchers know there are over 400 ibex here.

Munavvar Alidodov and Khalil Karimov, Nature Protection Team, who just came back from retrieving the traps, said “the rangers are very proud of the results of their work and hope that the presence of snow leopards and ibex will attract tourists. Income from future regulated hunting of ibex will support their conservation activities and the social-economic development of the villages involved.”

Cordyceps, a type of mushroom found in snow leopard habitat in Bhutan and other parts of the Himalayas. Photo Wikipedia.

Dr Rinjan Shrestha is a conservation scientist for WWF-US, Eastern Himalayas Program and he’s currently in the small Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan working on a project researching snow leopards and mushrooms. Rinjan recently led a survey team that captured the first photographic evidence through camera trap survey that snow leopards are thriving in Wangchuck Centennial Park.

He is back in the field in Bhutan and sent a short report of his current activities to “Saving Snow Leopards” Blog.

“For my assignment in Bhutan, I am currently working in the central range (27° 51’ N, 90° 39’ E) of the Wangchuck Centennial Park.  Our objective has been to count blue sheep numbers and estimate snow leopard population in the region by employing direct counts and camera-trap surveys, respectively. So far, we have completed blue sheep counts. The camera traps were systematically laid out in late winter and early spring this year. I expect the first round of data to arrive by the last week of May, 2012.  I’m also planning to assess the impact of Cordyceps (mushroom) collection on the activity and movement of snow leopards in the region.

Cordyceps is a type of fungi (mushroom) also called the Chinese caterpillar and the name intriguingly means “summer plant and winter insect” because of its changing appearance in the seasons. They have for hundreds of years been regarded as medicinal by the Tibetans and Chinese and are collected by people in the high ranges of snow leopard habitat.

From left: Gempo Wangdi, Tenzing Wangdi, Dr Rinjan Shrestha, Leki Dorje, Nawang Tashi and Tenzing.

The information collected by Rinjan and his team  is vital to understand the health of snow leopard populations in this part of Bhutan and we look forward to hearing the outcome of his work in months to come.

Rinjan says “The photo here shows my field crew, consisting of park ranger, Tenzing Wandga, forester Leki Dorje (an expert high-altitude botanist), forester Nawang Tashi and intern Gempo Wangdi. We were also accompanied by Chhokpa, the headman of the Nasphelle village, and Tenzing, a horseman with 12 horses, who is always ready to fix tents, bags and boots with his magic needles and yak hair threads.”

You can read more on the WWF Blog.

So the snow leopard holds one formal world record.  We all know about longest tail etc, but that isn’t it.  Guiness Book of World Records has given the snow leopard this record – it is “the highest living land predator whose range extends across twelve countries in the mountainous regions of Central and southern Asia. Amongst the highest altitudes at which this rarely-seen cat has been photographed is by cameras hidden at 5,800 m (19,000 ft)”. Just another reason this cat is so special.

Himali and other villagers from the local Snow Leopard Conservation Committee set up camera traps to catch snow leopards on camera. © WWF-Nepal

I’d like to share this story from a WWF snow leopard conservationist in Kanchenjunga region of Nepal. It shows first hand the tough relationship between villagers and snow leopards that can often end tragically for the cats. But this story has a wonderful outcome and shows how snow leopards and villagers can live together.

Himali Chungda Sherpa is a champion for the snow leopard. But he didn’t start out that way. Long before he was chairman of the local Snow Leopard Conservation Committee, Himali sought his own revenge against these mountain cats.

When Himali was a young boy, his parents sent him into the pasture to care for the family’s herd of yaks. Early one morning, he discovered three calves were missing.

After hours and hours of looking for his calves, he caught a glimpse of the animals from high on a rocky ridge. Himali scrambled down to the spot, only to find scraps of his calves remained. Next to them were three full-bellied snow leopard cubs. Their mother had killed the calves to feed her young.

 “At that moment, I was so angry that all I could think of was revenge,” recalls Himali. In a fit of anger he scooped the cubs into a sack and threw them in the river.

Kanchenjunga on Nepali India border. This region is home to snow leopards now being protected by villagers and WWF funded support.

That night he heard the mother snow leopard crying for her children from up in the high mountains. In the pasture below, his yak was longing for her calves.

“It was then that I realized what a sin I had committed. I promised never to harm a snow leopard again,” says Himali. “Today, my passion is to save them.”  

Himali and others are now at the forefront of community-led efforts to save snow leopards. WWF supports their work by training them to survey and monitor snow leopards. We also help the community promote wildlife ecotourism and find solutions that benefit both people and snow leopards.     Read more about WWF snow leopard work.

The famous Stephen Oachs photo of a snow leopard which was used in the Express Tribune story about a man who had been killed by a common leopard.

Sadly villagers in the remote town of Rawalkot in Kashmir didn’t realise that there has never been a case of a snow leopard attacking a human. Last week a snow leopard climbed up a tree near the village and locals, fearing for their safety, shot the animal dead. It also seems probable that locals sometimes confuse snow leopards with the common leopard, a cat that has attacked and killed humans in the past.

Mr Waseem Khursheed,a local businenessman, witnessed the killing. “A snow leopard climbed up a tree and remained there for eight hours in the town of Banjosa, some 18 kilometres from Rawalkot.” Villagers tried to scare the leopard with firecrackers, but when this didn’t work they decided to kill it instead. Mr Khursheed reported  the villagers skinned the snow leopard and distributed its meat among the locals as it’s thought to have medicinal properties.

According to the Jammu and Kashmir Wildlife Act, the killing of a snow leopard can result in imprisonment of up to 6 months and/or fine, but charges are rarely made and not if it is considered self defense.

According to snow leopard expert, Dr Rodney Jackson, “To my knowledge there are no known, authenticated incidents of a human losing his or her life due to a snow leopard attack. This cat is amazingly shy and rather docile. Really, the opposite is the case given the number of stories of snow leopards — caught in a livestock pen — being stoned or beaten to death by angry villagers.”

Unfortunately confusion between the common leopard and snow leopard will continue when even a newspaper like the Express Tribune publishes the wrong photo in its stories about common and snow leopards.

A visitor to a Himalayan Homestay in ladakh is shown how felt is made by the host of the house who makes toys and clothes which are sold by the Snow Leopard Conservancy india Trust.

Felt making is thousands of years old and has been practiced in many cultures to make clothes, tents and toys. The felt fabric is made by matting and pressing wool and this wool is then used to make handicrafts.

Recently the villages of Saspoche and Ullay in Sham Valley Ladakh, India were trained in felt making of wild animals, including snow leopards for sale to travellers to Ladakh. The Snow Leopard Conservancy India Trust (SLC IT) arranged for Ute Meuser, a Waldorf teacher and expert on dry felting techniques, to train men and women to make handicrafts that will increase their income and help raise awareness of snow leopards in this area. The crafts will be sold in the SLC IT’s Snow Leopard Interpretive Centre in Leh, Ladakh, just in time for the coming summer peak trekking season.

Wool from domestic goats and sheep make the felt used by villagers for crafts.

Cover of 'Irbis, the Snow Leopard' - the book by Oleg and Irina Loginov from Kazakhstan.

Today Darla Hillard, Education Director of the Snow Leopard Conservancy shares a review of the new book “Irbis, the Snow Leopard” by Oleg and Irina Loginov from Kazakhstan. Darla is the author of the amazing “Vanishing Tracks – four years among the Snow Leopards of Nepal”, the remarkable story of her and Rodney Jackson’s years of ground breaking snow leopard research.

Here Darla writes about Irina and Oleg’s book.

I met Oleg Loginov in summer 2011. We both were in Gorno-Altaisk, capital of Siberia’s Altai Republic, to attend the town’s first Snow Leopard Day festival. We were very impressed by the children from rural villages, who sang and danced on a stage in the town center. Each performance was a tribute to the beautiful endangered snow leopard, calling for conservation action, to ensure that Siberia’s “Silver Wonder” continues to roam the magnificent Altai-Sayan Mountains. What a great occasion, then, on which to receive a copy of IRBIS, The Snow Leopard, the book that Oleg and his wife, Irina, produced under the UNDP/GEF Biodiversity Conservation Program!

The beautiful mountains of Kazakhstan are snow leopard habitat where the Kazakhstan Snow Leopard Fund works to protect the endangered cats.

IRBIS is a gorgeous hardbound volume. At 8.5”x11” (21.5x28cm), the pages are large enough for stunning photos and paintings of snow leopards and the landscapes in which they live. Oleg knows snow leopards.  He worked with them at the Almaty Zoo, and he and Irina founded the nonprofit Snow Leopard Fund to educate the general public and leaders of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) about Kazakhstan’s snow leopards. In addition, Oleg wrote the Conservation Strategy of the Snow Leopard in Kazakhstan, which was officially approved in August, 2011.

One of the many beautiful photos of snow leopards in the book.

In the chapter on the various groups working to protect snow leopards, Oleg presents a set of recommendations for actions that should be taken in the CIS countries.  I believe that the tourist, or other reader unfamiliar with the issues—a target group for this book—will appreciate this information, and knowing that positive steps can be taken.

The text for IRBIS was originally written in Russian, and the English translation isn’t perfect. But in my opinion the passion that Oleg and Irina pour into this volume far outweighs any errors.

A lovely children’s fairy tale by Irina, Spirits of the Sacred Mountain, is based on the indigenous Altai people’s worldview of the snow leopard.

Oleg chose photos that capture beautifully the spirit and force of these elusive big cats. He points out that most snow leopards are born under the sign of Taurus, since the females give birth between late April and early June. One trait of Taureans is a calm and predictable nature.  Oleg tells of Renat Minibayev, who went in January 2010 to visit his beekeeper friend in the mountains of Dzhungarsky on the boarder of China and Kazakhstan. Minibayev went on a ski walk to a nearby canyon; there he had an amazing encounter with a snow leopard. He took thirty photos, some from a distance of 1.5 meters. He said that over the time he and the cat watched each other, he fell in love.

That’s what Oleg and Irina hope for this book—that people will fall in love with snow leopards and join the fight to save them.

IRBIS, The Snow Leopard is available for a donation of $300 in support of the Snow Leopard Fund’s programs. Orders can be made by emailing the authors at irbisslc@yandex.kz.  Tax deductible donations (in the US)  earmarked for the book can be made via the Snow Leopard Conservancy, who will forward 100% of donations to the Snow Leopard Fund in Kazakhstan.

Dr Rodney Jackson, one of the world's foremost snow leopard researchers has been nominated a third time for the pretigious Indianapolis Prize for wildlife conservation. Go Rodney!

Dr Rodney Jackson, the first person to radio collar a wild snow leopard and director of the Snow Leopard Conservancy has been announced as a three-time finalist for the Indianapolis Prize, the annual $100,000 award for unique contribution to wildlife conservation.

Rodney has done and continues to do a huge job in protecting snow leopards in Central Asia. His focus is on research and community education especially promoting cross-boundary cooperation between snow leopard range countries. Snow leopards don’t understand country boundaries so its important for agencies to work together. “We see  again and again (that) a conservation approach of a single country here and there will not work long term. There needs to be cross-boundary cooperation, ” Rodney said.

Good luck Rodney, we hope third time lucky for you and the SLC! You desereve it!

Jigmet Dadul from the Snow Leopard Conservancy India Trust watching a female snow leopard in winter 2011. Jigmet is probably the most successful snow leopard tracker in all of the animals range countries. Photo by Sibylle Noras.

Jigmet Dadul from the Snow Leopard Conservancy India Trust (SLC-IT) has done it again! The group he took out in Hemis National Park in Ladakh (India ) with KarmaQuest travel had fantastic multiple snow leopard sightings. This wintertime trek has now had four years in a row of success in tracking and finding a snow leopard. It was this trek that I did last year where we were able to watch a female cat for 8 hours, a once in a life time experience that I’ll never forget.

Jigmet says of his success this year, “We did saw snow leopards 4 times, three sighting was quite far, one was for three hours. Rest two sighting was quite close from me, but I don’t have time to take pictures, I have to show the snow leopard to the group. Two sighting was in Husing Nullah, another one sighting was close to the camp, the last one in Rumbak gorge.”

Congratulations to Jigmet and all the team and everyone at SLC – IT and to Karma Quest. For anyone keen to to see wild snow leopards in their own habitat this is THE trek! The experience of this team and the success of the local villagers in this part of the Indian Himalayas in protecting snow leopards is outstanding. Together the conservationists and the villagers can just about guarantee a sighting at this time of year and that is a unique wildlife experience. KarmaQuest and SLC-IT will offer this trek again next year in February, so make sure you are a part of it, contact KarmaQuest.  (Update from May 2012 – The 2013 Winter trek is already full but there will probably be a second one so don’t hesitate to contact KarmaQuest.)

Technology now transmits a signal to researchers when a snow leopard is snared. This means the cats are reached very quickly by researchers and time the animals are captive while sedated and radio collared is shorter than ever before. Photo Panthera.

“I wouldn’t have wanted to be in the poacher’s shoes” says Dr Tom McCarthy, Panthera’s Director of Snow Leopard Programs in a fascinating webinar called “The Science behind saving Central Asia’s Mountain Ghost”. Tom was talking about conservation programs where villagers promise not to harm snow leopards in return for support with selling crafts. A poacher did kill a cat in one village and the women lost their bonus and were furious with the poacher.

This is an hour long talk and worth ever minute of listening as Tom goes through a huge amount of information about snow leopards, their habitat, the threats facing them and the first ever long term study on snow leopards in Mongolia. “We do a lot of listening to people in snow leopard areas and there is no cookie cutter approach to this . What will work in Mongolia might not work in Pakistan or Bhutan.”

One of the most fascinating topics is the way the Mongolia program now traps snow leopards to put collars on them and the technology that alerts the researchers so the time the cats spend in the snare is very short compared to years ago.

Hear and see webinar here.