New study reveals dangers to biological diversity from proliferation of global cashmere garment industry. Snow leopard, wild yak, Tibetan antelope, gazelles, and other species impacted.
News & Stories
Snow Leopard Trust Applauds Etsy's Decision to Ban Endangered Animal Products
Press Release — Seattle, WA, July 22, 2013 Following a petition launched by the Snow Leopard Trust and signed by more than 33,000 people, the trend-setting online marketplace Etsy.com steps up for wildlife and explicitly bans listings containing parts of endangered animals from their site. The Snow Leopard Trust is happy that the trend-setting marketplace …
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 …
Covering New Ground: A Report From the Field
After a week of planning and preparing and 3 exhilarating weeks of field work in Mongolia, Senior Regional Ecologist Koustubh Sharma is back home in Delhi, working on analyzing the wealth of data collected over the last months. He shares some of his experiences with us.
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 …
Cubs Near You?!
It’s cub season – in snow leopard habitat in Central Asia and in zoos around the world. While our researchers are in the field looking for wild cubs, we’re also in touch with our zoo partners around the world, so we can update you on births near you – and please don’t hesitate to tell …
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” …
Tell Etsy.com to stop treating endangered animals as products!
[Update, 5/31: Tell Etsy to ban all listings containing parts of endangered animals from their site, regardless of legal status! As we’ve recently learned from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Services*, it is not only illegal to sell any products made from endangered animals, including “vintage” items, to a buyer in another state, it’s also …
Welcome back, Devekh
Breaking news from our base camp in South Gobi! Field scientist Örjan Johansson called in earlier this week to report that he had successfully fitted a new GPS collar on Devekh, a large male snow leopard we had previously been following for a few months back in 2010, before his original collar dropped off.
Research Camera Gems
Throughout the snow leopard range, Trust researchers like Rishi Sharma and Li Juan are tracking snow leopard populations with research cameras. They hike up steep slopes and scramble down rocky crevices to find the perfect spots to set up their cameras – and then they make the same trip again a few months later to …