Spring field season is underway in Mongolia’s Tost Mountains, and our research team is as busy as ever. They’ve collared two new snow leopards, the ibex are still elusive and a mystery two years in the making has been solved. Read Dr. Örjan Johansson’s dispatches from base camp below.
The high-altitude valleys where snow leopards live are also home to farming communities with deep roots in the land. An award-winning study, co-authored by Kulbhushansingh Suryawansh, Director of our India program, and team members from the India program, examines what’s at stake as traditional crops disappear. Read on to find out what a 3,000-year-old pea can teach us about food sovereignty and climate resilience.
In one of Mongolia’s most spectacular landscapes, a vulnerable species is thriving. But for how long depends on decisions being made right now. In September 2025, a team of researchers and rangers set out across the vast expanse of the South Gobi to count goitered gazelles. The mission had two goals: to gather reliable data on gazelle populations and to train local rangers in modern survey techniques.
Deep in the high Himalayas, camera traps set up to track snow leopards have been quietly capturing something else as well, a cast of brilliantly colored, rarely seen birds that may be just as important to the mountain ecosystem. Researcher Adithi Rao explains what happened when curiosity led her team to take a closer look at what else was showing up in the frame
Those words, spoken by a woman living in the heart of snow leopard country in Pakistan, capture something that has been unfolding across mountain communities for decades. Since Snow Leopard Enterprises (SLE) first launched in Mongolia in 1998, a growing number of people have found that protecting snow leopards and building a better life for their families are not competing goals. They are the same goal.
In the mountain valleys of northern Pakistan, a snow leopard lived a long life. He hunted and roamed freely. He survived the most dangerous years an apex predator can face in a human-dominated landscape. And then, at roughly 12 years of age, he died quietly in a forested area above the village of Wakht, in Chitral’s Garam Chashma valley.
What have the collared individuals been up to since we last saw them? We’re currently tracking seven GPS-collared cats and one ibex roaming Mongolia’s Tost Mountains. They are part of our long-term monitoring program, which has followed 45 individual snow leopards across generations since 2009, giving us unique insights into the lives of these endangered predators and their prey.
In the vast, arid landscapes of southern Mongolia, the delicate balance between nature and human survival is shifting. New research highlights how climate change and different land uses affect the Gobi’s life-sustaining ecosystem services—and how the people living there perceive these growing threats.
Deep in the northern highlands of Pakistan lies Laspur, a valley like no other. Nestled near Shandur, the world’s highest polo ground, this alpine region is known for its dramatic peaks, expansive green meadows, vibrant summer polo festivals, and the quiet presence of the snow leopard, often called the Ghost of the Mountain.
In the high mountains of Mongolia’s Tost Nature Reserve, our researchers have been tracking snow leopards through one of the most demanding periods of their lives: the weeks before and after females give birth. What they discovered reveals remarkable maternal behaviors and preparation.
