Support for Wild Snow Leopards Boosted by Apple’s Snow Leopard OS

[Snow Leopard Trust Press Release; Reposting/reprinting allowed]

From the US to Germany to Sweden, the new Mac OS X is raising awareness—and donations—for snow leopard conservation. 

Seattle—The launch of the new Mac OS X is bringing much-needed awareness to one of the world’s most endangered big cats: the snow leopard of Central Asia. For months the staff of the Snow Leopard Trust, the largest and oldest organization working to save the cats, has been fielding calls from people asking “did you know the new Mac OS is called ‘Snow Leopard’?” Not only had Apple named their new operating system after the otherwise elusive big cat, they are featuring a photo of a snow leopard front and center on their product box.

 “This is a boon for wild snow leopards,” says Brad Rutherford, Executive Director of the Snow Leopard Trust, “Apple is helping to show the world the beauty and majesty of this rare creature.” As recently as a few years ago, Rutherford would often encounter people who didn’t know what a snow leopard was, or what one looked like. Now, he says, the launch of the new OS will hopefully put snow leopards front and center and drive people to find out more.

 Already, the launch has encouraged a number of Apple partners to support snow leopard conservation. In Munich, Loctory GmbH, a company working with Apple to make their products available in German, has financially donated to the Snow Leopard Trust and agreed to help the Trust translate their outreach materials into German.

 In Sweden, Örjan Johansson, a Snow Leopard Trust researcher, has been invited to speak during the country’s OS X product launch.

 But the biggest support to date has come from within the United States where the Snow Leopard Trust is working with Apple Specialists Marketing Corp, a trade organization of over 100 independently owned Apple Specialist dealers.

 More than three dozen Apple Specialist stores from California to New York are helping the Snow Leopard Trust sell cub adoption kits (specially priced for Mac’s new OS release) to raise money for conservation. Tekserve, an Apple Specialist retailer in New York, has decided to donate all the proceeds from the first 100 Mac OS X operating systems they sell. A full list of participating Apple Specialists is available at www.applespecialist.com/adoptions.

 Following the launch, Rutherford will speak at Apple’s headquarter in Cupertino, California in September to give Apple’s marketing team a glimpse into the lives of the wild snow leopards and the Trust’s ongoing research in Mongolia, which constitutes the largest snow leopard study to date.

 The support and donations from Apple partners comes at a particularly crucial time for the Snow Leopard Trust. “We have a new donor match going on through October,” says Rutherford, “for all the Apple partners, anything they give will be matched—that means they can have double the impact for snow leopard conservation.” The match is provided by the Leona M. Geyer Charitable Trust, and was donated for just this reason: to encourage new people to get involved in securing a future for wild snow leopards.

 As few as 3,500 snow leopards remain in the wild throughout Central Asia, and Rutherford says global awareness and support are the key to saving the species. To find out more, go to www.snowleopard.org