Researchers capture first-ever photos of snow leopard cubs in the Kyrgyz Ala-Too range at the Shamshy Wildlife Sanctuary. The images are a sign of hope for this threatened big cat.
Category: Research
Red List status of snow leopard: Data doesn’t support the IUCN’s decision.
In a commentary published in the top international journal SCIENCE on March 9th, 2018, two leading snow leopard researchers, Dr. Charudutt Mishra of the Snow Leopard Trust, and Dr. Som Ale of the University of Illinois at Chicago, challenge the scientific merit of the data and assumptions used by the IUCN in down listing snow leopards on the Red List.
Tracking Predator and Prey
Snow Leopards Trust researchers are planning to track both wild snow leopards and ibex, their primary prey species, with GPS technology this spring.
Where Do Snow Leopards Like to Hang Out?
Thanks to hourly GPS position uploads from tracking collars, researchers can reconstruct a day in the life of a wild snow leopard in unprecedented detail. The data shows what types of terrain these cats seek to rest, observe, and hunt prey.
Rare Footage: a Snow Leopard Family of Four
A mother and her three almost fully grown cubs visit a research camera.
Ibex are Plentiful in Kyrgyz Nature Reserve
Conservationists and rangers counted wild mountain ungulates in Sarychat-Ertash Nature Reserve and the adjacent Koiluu Hunting Concession, both in the Tian Shan Mountains of Kyrgyzstan. They found exceptionally high numbers of ibex and argali in the reserve, while populations in the concession were significantly lower.
Counting Ibex: Fall Prey Surveys Completed
Scientists and rangers in Mongolia conduct a comprehensive survey of ibex and argali, the snow leopard’s preferred prey species, in the Tost and Noyon mountains. The populations currently look stable and sufficiently large to sustain the area’s snow leopards.
Putting a Price Tag on Nature’s Priceless Gifts
The value of nature’s goods and services that local people living in Asia’s mountains depend on is several times more than their average household income. In other words, if things such as fresh water and productive grasslands provided by the ecosystem were lost, it would spell ruin for these communities. These are the results of …
Dagina Is Back on the Air
Dagina, an eight-year old female snow leopard we’ve known since she was a tiny cub, becomes our latest cat to be tracked with a GPS collar in the world’s most comprehensive study of wild snow leopards.
Snow Leopard Distribution Maps Don’t Always Show True Picture
Study finds that snow leopards only use three quarters of the presumed snow leopard habitat in Himachal Pradesh, India, raising questions about the way we map the cat’s distribution.