(Photo of Aztai by Stephen Sparrow, courtesy of SLT/Panthera)
We’re in the third year of our long-term snow leopard study and it’s been a busy field season. In June, our crew installed 40 automatic camera traps in the mountains, at locations such as saddles or steep canyons that are used avidly by snow leopards. The cameras will stay in the field for two months and photograph any animal that trips their field of view. Analysis will follow once the pictures are retrieved. Using trap cameras (remote digital cameras with infrared sensors) is one of the most reputed methods across the world to estimate the abundance of cryptic animals, such as snow leopards.
In addition to the trap cameras, we also explored other ways to monitor snow leopard populations. This summer, our field crew managed to survey over 40 sites to estimate snow leopard occupancy using indirect evidences of their presence, such as scrapes.
Concurrently, one of our Masters students, Nadia, interviewed herders in the Tost region in a project that will ultimately help us understand how and why herders use snares to hunt predators. Two known snow leopards were trapped in snares last year, and by gaining a better understanding of the problem we hope to develop sustainable solutions for the future. Thank you to the Nysether Family Foundation for funding Nadia’s research.
In addition to all this, our GPS radio collaring study is going strong as we follow the movements of 7 snow leopards. Make sure to read our latest update and find out about our newest cat—a female named Zaraa.