Ladakh, the starkly beautiful high mountain desert in India’s Jammu & Kashmir province, is one of the world’s best places to see wild snow leopards. It’s also one of our conservation focus areas. Our Communications Manager Matt Fiechter recently traveled to Ladakh to learn more about our ongoing community-based snow leopard conservation programs – and follow the tracks of the elusive Ghost Cat.
Mongolia’s Tost Mountains have recently been declared a State Nature Reserve, thanks to a remarkable effort by the local community. Now, it’s up to us all to help ensure that the area’s rich wildlife – including a stable snow leopard population, can thrive in this prime habitat.
Mongolia’s Parliament declares Tost a State Protected Area. The mountain range is home to a stable, breeding population of snow leopards.
Press release, Nordens Ark, Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, Snow Leopard Trust
The Pallas’s cat is a small cat species that lives in the mountains and grasslands of Central Asia, from Iran to China and Mongolia. It’s one of the least studied cats in the world and is currently listed as Near Threatened with a decreasing population by the IUCN red list of endangered species. A large international collaboration has now been initiated in order to make progress with the conservation of the species.
Our Mongolian colleague and friend Sumbe Tomorsukh would have celebrated his 28th birthday today. He was a talented researcher, and a passionate, dedicated advocate for the wildlife of his beloved Tost Mountains, in Mongolia’s South Gobi province.
When snow leopards and other predators manage to enter herder’s corrals, the results can be devastating – but with teamwork, building supplies, and a couple of days’ time, the problem can be fixed, and conflicts avoided.
Growing up in Mongolia’s Gobi desert, Tserennadmid (Nadia) Mijiddorj knew from a young age that she wanted to become a snow leopard conservationist. She’s made her dream come true, earning a Masters in biology and joining the Snow Leopard Conservation Foundation – the Mongolia partner of the Snow Leopard Trust – as a Conservation and Education Manager over a decade ago. Now, thanks to her second Sidney Byers Scholarship for Wildlife Conservation through the WCN Scholarship Program, this homegrown conservationist is ready to take the next step in her career.
More than 50 Snow Leopard Trust supporters came together earlier this month to fund a wildlife awareness event for school kids in Pakistan on World Wildlife Day. It brought 125 kids to Islamabad’s Natural History Museum for an unforgettable experience!
Press Release, March 3rd, 2016. Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. A total of ten Kyrgyz wildlife rangers have received a Citizen Ranger Wildlife Award for their courage in the fight against illegal hunting in the country’s snow leopard habitat in 2015. They were publicly honored in a ceremony in Bishkek today, on World Wildlife Day.
A 1,500-square-kilometer area of Mongolia’s Gurvansaikhan Mountains is home to multiple snow leopards and young, according to a first glance at photographs from last spring’s research cameras.
