Twice this year, and possibly a third time, snow leopards have been captured or injured in steel-jaw leg-hold traps intended to capture wolves. The most recent incident occurred on July 5th when a herder arrived at the Snow Leopard Trust’s research camp to report a snow leopard caught in a wolf trap near his ger (yurt). Our research team arrived on the scene and found a badly wounded male snow leopard hiding in a cave with the trap still closed on its leg. Under difficult circumstances, the team sedated the cat (nicknamed ‘Itgel’, which means ‘hope’ in Mongolian), treated the wounds as best they could, and released the cat with a radio collar to monitor his recovery from, or loss to, the injuries. To date Itgel is still alive and moving according to locations received from his GPS collar. If the cat survives it will be an incredible recovery from a terrible set of injuries. At almost the same time the research team discovered that Aztai was missing a toe when they were replacing his collar, possibly from a close call with a leg-hold trap. The two incidents are in addition to the loss of Bayartai in January.
While these incidents didn’t involve participants of the Trust’s Community Conservation Programs it is alarming to have these events occur over 7 months in areas bordering our programs. The Snow Leopard Trust is seeking to address the threats to snow leopards and other predators from these steel jaw leg-hold traps. The ranges of snow leopards and wolves overlap extensively, and we are seeing the damage caused by these horrible devices that trap animals indiscriminately. The issue is made more complex because the use of the traps to hunt wolves is currently legal in Mongolia. We have already begun the work necessary to understand where the traps are being used and the financial and legal issues involved in trapping wolves and other wildlife. While we wish for a simple solution, we know that any proposed program will be difficult because it must protect wildlife and have support from the local communities, whose financial security depends almost wholly on their livestock. We are confident that we will be able to find a solution to this issue and we will keep you up to date on Itgel’s progress and our efforts to solve this complex problem.