s After an insane collaring session where we had six snow leopards in 20 nights, we have closed up our equipment. We do not want to find the same individuals too many times and I started getting a little tired. Usually one has a few nights of rest after a collaring, but we never seemed …
News & Stories
Setting New Records
Orjan recounts his first two incredible weeks collaring snow leopards at the base camp of our long-term study (Orjan is a Swedish PhD student working on this study): We have set a new collaring record and put out four GPS radio collars in 15 days. First we put a collar on a new female, called F5 for …
A New Female is Welcomed into Our Long-term Study
With our field researchers settled back in at our Mongolian base camp, this field season is off to a great start. We are thrilled to welcome a new female into our long term ecological study! Orjan, a PhD student from Sweden reports on the event below: “We caught a new cat yesterday. Finally all the …
The Snow Leopard Tsagaan Passes Away
One of the snow leopards in our long term ecological study, Tsagaan, recently died. We do not yet know the cause of his death but we are actively investigating and will post the findings as soon as we have them. Our field researcher Orjan explains. Two days ago I got an email saying that Tsagaan …
Back in Action: Orjan Sets Up Base Camp
Back in the field, Orjan sends an update: The first ten days of this field session have passed. We have been working non-stop to set up camp and scout the area. Camp is located in the same site as our old Base Camp and we are hoping to collar snow leopards in the same area as where the …
Zaraa's Walk to the Border
Koustubh, our Regional Field Biologist, sent us this great update recently: Zaraa has done something really exciting this week… On the 19th, she set out South, all the way to China for an expedition through an area that seems to have no mountains at all!!! She went into the open steppe from the area that …
Mongolian Authorities Rescind Permit Issued for the Killing of Snow Leopards for Research
Thanks to an international effort, on March 23 the Mongolian government rescinded the permit that would have allowed four snow leopards in Mongolia to be killed for “research.” Our senior staff were in Mongolia when the crisis developed and worked with the Snow Leopard Network and local NGOs to convince the government that killing snow …
April's Snow Leopard Photo of the Month from National Geographic
Our April photo of the month re-presents the June 2008 issue of National Geographic where snow leopards were featured in an article titled “Out of the Shadows: The Elusive Central Asian snow leopard steps into a risk filled future.” Amazing photos of wild snow leopards by Steve Winter were featured in the article, including an …
Snow leopard Khashaa's major break-out
We have been observing one beautiful young female snow leopard that we call Khashaa (the star of our fall fundraiser last year). Khashaa has been interesting because she has stayed within a very tight little home range of only 40 sq. km. This is very small compared to the home ranges of the other snow leopards, which …
A close call for the snow leopard Shonkhor
In February one of the male snow leopard we are studying, Shonkhor, killed 13 livestock belonging to a herding family in southern Mongolia. Incidents like this have driven other herders in Mongolia to kill snow leopards , but in a heartening act of tolerance this herder decided to contact our staff to seek another option. While it is not …