Livestock killed by snow leopard in Gigit, Pakistan. Often wolves also kill livestock and it can be difficult to know which animal is responsible if they are not caught in the act.Photo Pamir Times, Gilgit.
A snow leopard killed 68 domestic goats in six separate incidents, in a remote valley of Gilgit, Pakistan in one night last week. The cat got into the corrals at night in a village near the Pakistan-China border which is one of the country’s main snow leopard habitat regions.
Bodies of the animals were scattered all over the place after the incident,” said Rehman Posh, a conservationist working with the Khunjerab Village Organisation. He said the villagers were upset about the financial loss of so many dead animals.
“We have submitted our complaints. But they just come to tell us the importance of the snow leopards. They never recompense the poor herders who bear the losses,” a farmer said.
Unfortunately snow leopards attack and kill livestock when their natural wild prey is scarce and livestock numbers increase. Village numbers are growing in the mountain regions and humans now compete with snow leopards in their own habitat.
Community conservation programs can help with this type of human snow leopard conflict. Insurance schemes reimburse villagers for dead livestock and some programs help pay for better snow leopard proof livestock corrals that stop the cats from getting in. But the spread of these programs takes time and money; in the meantime it is hard on both villagers and snow leopards.
Story from The Express Tribune.
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I take it that these goats where not in a wire encolsed shelter, as discussed by the late great Rinchen Wangchuk in his video a year ago on Snow Leopard conservancy http://vimeo.com/11791195?
no proper enclosure Glenn, as you point out. This is one of the things that the SL Conservancy and other organisations are helping with but takes time (and money) to do it in the massive area where snow leopards live. SL Conservancy in India in Ladakh are currently trialling elextric fencing, solar powered, they got some funds from panthera to test it up there.