Empowering Women, Protecting Cats: Impressions from the Snow Leopard Enterprises Design Summit in Mongolia

This July, members of our team traveled to Western Mongolia to work with participating herder communities on new designs and product ideas for Snow Leopard Enterprises (SLE), our successful conservation program that creates economic opportunities for herder families in snow leopard habitat in return for a commitment to protect the cats they live with. The “Design Summit” …

Snow Leopard Trust Researchers Encounter Wild Snow Leopard Cub

Press Release – Seattle, WA, July 11, 2013 An international research team including members of the Snow Leopard Trust encounters a 2-week-old wild snow leopard cub in its den; a rare glimpse of the first days in the life of these endangered, elusive cats.  Finding a wild snow leopard cub in its den is rare …

Etsy HQ makes tentative first steps to review sale of endangered animal products

Earlier this month, we discovered hundreds of illegal listings for products made with parts of endangered animals on the trend-setting online marketplace Etsy.com. After several attempts to be heard by Etsy HQ, we launched a petition asking Etsy headquarters to adopt a policy that would prohibit such items from the site – and you’ve stepped …

Q&A: Why Etsy HQ needs to ban endangered animal products

What do we want Etsy headquarters to do? As revealed by a few simple searches on the Etsy marketplace for terms such as “pre-ban”, “real leopard”, “real ivory” or “rhino horn”, there are currently several hundred products made with parts of endangered animals listed on the site – the vast majority of them labeled as “vintage”, “pre-ban” …

Pakistan: Comprehensive Report on Snow Leopard Distribution in the Works

In 2013, Snow Leopard Trust researchers in Pakistan hope to complete camera trap studies and conflict surveys that will help them paint the most complete picture of snow leopard distribution and conservation status across the country to date. Fast facts: The Snow Leopard Trust’s local partner organization in Pakistan is finalizing the country’s first comprehensive …

Face to Face with Snow Leopards: A Close Encounter in China

A research team from our Chinese partner organization, Shan Shui, was taking a break from exhausting field work in the mountainous Sanjiangyuan region, when Edward, a young Chinese-American volunteer, dropped his binoculars. He climbed back down the steep slope they had just come up to recover them – only to suddenly find himself face to …