We pinpointed the location of Itgel’s collar to a spot near the top of a mountain in Toson Bumba. This seemed an unlikely spot for a snow leopard to die or be caught in a trap set for wolves, so it seemed to support our earlier notion that Itgel had finally managed to slip his radio collar over his head. With Orjan on leave in Sweden, Bayara (our Mongolia Country Program Director) made arrangements for the local governor to visit the site with his staff to look for Itgel’s collar. The Governor’s team was able to quickly locate the collar using the GPS coordinates we provided, and found no sign of Itgel which again seemed to indicate that the collar had been ‘slipped’. But when the collar arrived at our office in Ulaanbaatar, Bayara immediately wrote with the news that the nuts used to fasten the collar around Itgel’s neck were no longer on the collar. Sadly, this indicates that Itgel likely succumbed to his injuries or was killed. After discussing the situation with Bayara and other members of our staff, we have sent Pursee and Sumbee, two of our Mongolia biologists, to the site to investigate. The team left for the South Gobi last Wednesday and will be meeting with local families and government officials, as well as visiting some of the last locations we received from Itgel’s radio collar, to look for clues to his fate. We hope to receive an update soon and will provide more information as it becomes available.