Snow leopards aren’t in the habit of posing for cameras, so while they provide valuable data, many of the photos our researchers capture probably won’t ever be featured in the pages of glossy nature magazines.

Every once in a while, however, there is a real gem among the hundreds of blurry black-and-white images. Indian field scientist Rishi Sharma recalls the moment he discovered one of the most amazing research camera photos to date: “Our cameras take a picture whenever something moves in front of them, so each time I analyze new pictures, I find myself looking at hundreds of yaks, goats and birds. Hidden in between are a few pictures of snow leopards, mostly travelling at night. Identifying these cats helps us to monitor the population, but the photos aren’t much to look at. But last fall, after having looked at hundreds of blurry night shots, I found one photo that made all the hiking worth it. A fluffy cub – not more than a few months old – was padding along the ridge on a sunny day. It was as though the cub chose the best light to have its picture snapped.”

A future monarch of the mountains, expertly posing for Rishi Sharma's research camera

Much like Rishi Sharma, Li Juan is used to browsing through hundreds of photos. She conducts her photo research in the Sanjiangyuan region on the Tibetan Plateau in China, home to one of the world’s largest snow leopard populations. One of Juan’s cameras in the area is focused on a rocky junction between two valleys near the township of Suojia. This location seems to function as something of a signpost for the local fauna, as a large number of mammals pass there at different times, with many of them sniffing and marking the spot. Snow leopards are one of the species that visit regularly: “Within 2 months, we photographed at least 29 different individual snow leopards in this area”, Li Juan recalls, “including five female cats with cubs. Four females had one cub each, and one cat had two cubs.”

Two cubs, passing by the signpost. Photo: Center for Nature and Society, Peking University / Shan Shui Conservation Center

While most of our research camera photos don’t have this iconic quality, even the most blurry black and white picture of a cat’s tail at midnight can have scientific value. “Data from these photos will allow us to develop a better understanding of the snow leopard population. Will it increase due to the conservation programs that protect the cats and increase their prey? How many cubs make it through the harsh winters? We hope to find answers to these crucial conservation questions” says Rishi Sharma.

Tracking a Cat’s Growth on Camera

Dagina with her mother Agnes and her sibling

In our Long-Term Ecological Study in Mongolia, we’ve been in the unique position of following a handful of cats over several years with GPS collars. Research cameras in the same area allow us to keep track of these cats once their collars drop off – so we can paint a more complete picture of a cat’s life.

For instance, in 2009, we were able to photograph a tiny female cub, nicknamed “Dagina” for the first time, closely following her mother, Agnes.

Dagina's cub, encountered by our research team in Mongolia

The next year, we met Dagina again in a new set of photos, as a young adult.

In 2012, we managed to collar her and track her movements. A few months later, while taking two key government officials on a tour of the area Dagina had chosen as her home range, Puji and Sumbe, two of our Mongolia team members, suddenly saw themselves face to face with Dagina’s own young cub – and managed to snap a picture that rivals our best research camera photos! “The cub had likely explored outside of the den while its mother was off hunting”, Puji remembers. “We took a quick photo, and then quietly left so as not to scare him.”

Check out 10 of our most iconic research camera photos ever:

Raiysa Sultangazievna (second from right) and members of her community

Snow Leopard Enterprises is a conservation program that works directly with the people who share snow leopard habitat in various range countries to create sustainable economic opportunities that to offset any losses they have to livestock from snow leopards and reduce the motivation behind poaching.  The program provides training and equipment that enables participants to make beautiful handmade items from wool. We purchases these items at mutually agreed upon prices and sell them through our online store. In return, participants agree to protect snow leopards and wild prey species in their area from poaching.

Participants in Snow Leopard Enterprises in Enilchek

Raiysa Sultangazievna has been a participant in Snow Leopard Enterprises since the program got its start in Kyrgyzstan in 2002. As our new local coordinator, she will use her vast experience and her unique local perspective to help lead the future development of Snow Leopard Enterprises in Enilchek, a community of around 25 families located close to the Sarychat-Ertash Reserve, Kyrgyzstan’s prime snow leopard habitat.

“This program is very important for us; because of the income it brings, but also because it has made us more aware of the value of wildlife around us”, Raiysa says. “And it has strengthened relationships in our community. All the participants enjoy working together; and these days, we all get together to celebrate holidays and birthdays as well.”

New Experiences in Bishkek

New jobs bring new experiences. Last week, Raiysa travelled to Bishkek, the Kyrgyz capital, for the first time – and had the very first Skype meeting of her life shortly after. Accompanied by the Snow Leopard Trust’s Kyrgyzstan Country Director, Kuban Jumabaev, Raiysa visited Bishkek’s bazaar, one of the largest markets in Asia. She collected product ideas, samples, and information on prices and materials. Back in the Snow Leopard Trust office, after an exhausting day, another new experience lay ahead: Her first ever Skype call. Half a world away, in Seattle, Jennifer Snell Rullman, the Trust’s Assistant Director of Conservation, had gotten up at 4:30 am in order to have a chance to talk to Raiysa, who would board an overnight bus back to remote Enilchek later that day. “Now that Snow Leopard Enterprises is back up and running in Kyrgyzstan, I wanted to hear Raiysa’s perspective on the program and what ideas she has to make it even better for the cats and the community”, Jennifer says.

Kyrgyz Snow leopard on the prowl. Photo: Kyle McCarthy

“Snow Leopard Enterprises in Kyrgyzstan had been temporarily suspended in 2009. Our team conducted an 18-month assessment of threats to snow leopards in the country, including an evaluation of the effectiveness of Snow Leopard Enterprises as a positive conservation solution”, Jennifer explains.  As the evaluation showed that the program did indeed contribute to keeping Kyrgyzstan’s cats safe, Snow Leopard Enterprises Kyrgyzstan was re-initiated in the communities of Enilchek and Ak-Shyirak in 2011.

colorful Donkey Booties from Enilchek

An order was placed soon after, but getting it to Seattle has posed a logistical problem. “Due to extremely harsh weather in 2012 that kept mountain passes closed for many months, we could only return to these villages recently”, Jennifer recalls. “Now, we are particularly excited to be able to visit the community again, offer the income to the participants after a long winter of making products, and to see at the long-awaited shipment of products that has finally arrived in Seattle from Kyrgyzstan.”

The unique handicrafts from Snow Leopard Enterprises, including beautifully embroidered felt booties for children in a variety of vivid colors, are exclusively available in our online store.

Seattle’s Woodland Park Zoo has been a partner of the Snow Leopard Trust and a leader in snow leopard conservation and research for many years.,We’re currently teaming up with Woodland Park Zoo to develop a comprehensive conservation strategy for snow leopards in Kyrgyzstan.

Wild snow leopard cub encountered by our research team in Mongolia

Are you new to snow leopard conservation? Then these cubs need you! Right now an extra $10 will be donated to protect snow leopards for every NEW supporter of the Trust.  

Wondering if you can participate?  If you haven’t made a donation or an adoption in the past five years, join us! If you’ve enjoyed your purchases, but haven’t donated for snow leopards, now is the perfect time to do more. Making a donation or adopting a snow leopard today will give snow leopards an additional $10!

This additional $10 is enough to vaccinate 8 livestock including sheep, goats, and cattle through the Livestock Vaccination Program.  In exchange for help protecting their livestock from disease, herders in the program will protect snow leopards from poaching.

Now is the perfect time to protect cubs and their families through cutting-edge research and community-based programs. We need 300 new supporters to take advantage of this opportunity.  Won’t you give today?

P.S. If you have given for snow leopards before, thank you very much! Your generosity has allowed us to establish successful conservation programs in five snow leopard range countries. It is your continuing support that enables us today to reach out to new potential donors in order and expand our programs and protect even more cats! If you can help us in this process, please make another gift today! Thank you so much!

Fast Facts

• In order to protect snow leopards, we have to understand their needs & behaviors

• We’ve learned much of what we know about snow leopards from GPS collar location data

• Snow Leopard Trust researchers have developed best practices for safely immobilizing and collaring cats

Sometimes, people suggest that in order to protect wildlife, humans should just leave animals alone. Unfortunately, in today’s globalized world, just keeping our distance won’t be enough to ensure the survival of endangered species like the snow leopard.

Our actions affect the cats in their habitat

Of course, in ancient times, their unspoiled range used to provide plenty of everything the cats needed. But whether we like it or not, those days are over. Today, humans are impacting global and local ecosystems in various ways – on scales large and small: Our energy consumption has effects on the global climate – and local precipitation patterns and temperatures in snow leopard range countries. Our tastes in fashion here in the West influence what kind of livestock are reared by herders in Central Asia – and how much wild prey populations of the snow leopard get depleted as a result. Our technological innovations help make minerals such as gold so indispensable that more and more pristine mountain ranges of Central Asia are being dug up to meet the demand.

We can’t help but affect wildlife, even if we try to keep our distance. What we can do, however, is to find ways for species like the snow leopard to coexist with humans. But in order to do so, we first have to understand what their most important needs are.

Some insights can be gained through observation. Others can be deduced. But if the species you’re trying to understand – and ultimately protect – is as elusive and rare as the snow leopard, visual observation is nearly impossible, and there is little previous information to deduce from.

We’ve learned much of what we know about snow leopards from GPS collars

Along with other technological innovations, the technology to study rare and elusive species has also seen rapid advances. Our best chance to get the information we need to devise effective conservation strategies for snow leopards is through equipping wild cats with GPS collars and tracking their movements.

Lasya, one of the female snow leopards we've been tracking

In fact, we’ve learned much of what we know about snow leopards today – from their spatial needs to their major food sources – from the location data scientists collected from such collars over the last decade.

For instance, it was only after one of our radio-collared young male snow leopards left his mother’s home range and moved some 60 km across inhospitable Gobi steppes to the next mountain chain and established his home range there, that we realized the importance of protecting the intervening steppe habitats between mountain ranges. Often, these relatively flat areas are under particular pressure from the development of new roads and mining operations. Without radio collaring, we would have never realized the important role the play in the dispersal of snow leopards.

If you’ve followed some of the adventures of our field researcher and collaring expert Örjan Johansson on this blog, you know that collaring snow leopards is as difficult as it is important – for several reasons. There’s the tricky terrain; temperatures tend to be freezing, and wild snow leopards don’t exactly seek human company – so they have to be immobilized in order for us to fit a collar on them.

Örjan Johansson, collaring a wild snow leopard in Mongolia

It’s understandable that certain readers may find this process rather upsetting. However, as described, we consider it a crucial part of our conservation effort. Our highly professional team of scientists is doing all they can to minimize the impact on the cats and keep them safe. Örjan, who has the training of a researcher, the skills and instincts of a hunter and naturalist, and the heart of a conservationist, leads all our capture operations – and it is his priority that not a single snow leopard be hurt on his watch

Since 2009, our team has collared a total of 19 cats, which has allowed us to develop a method for capture and immobilization that can be considered best practice in the field. Örjan and his colleagues, global leaders in snow leopard research, have now published[i] the results of their experiences and insights for safe immobilization of wild snow leopards in the Journal of Wildlife Diseases, a peer-reviewed scientific publication. You can read the research paper here.

Step-by-Step Guide to Collaring a Wild Snow Leopard

The first step to collaring a cat is setting a snare to capture it. Used with skill, these snares are safe for the cats, and once a snare is tripped, an alarm sounds that instantly alerts our researchers to investigate the site. Once captured, the cat has to be immobilized so that a GPS collar can be fitted on. Since every species has a unique physiology, finding the right mix of drugs to achieve safe immobilization with minimal side effects is challenging.

Building on existing studies on the immobilization of bears and lions with a combination of sedatives and tranquilizers, and seeking the advice of experienced zoo veterinarians, our team has developed a drug protocol specifically designed for the immobilization of snow leopards. Cats that have been immobilized with this method have shown good physiological responses and minimal side effects.

Aztai, freshly collared, kept warm before being released back into nature

Since snow leopards are most active at dusk and dawn, most captures happen when it’s very cold. The cats therefore have to be kept warm throughout the time of their immobilization. Our team does this with isolating blankets or sleeping bags, warm water bottles, and constantly monitoring body temperature.

When temperatures and terrain are considered safe, the team administers an antidote to help the cat recover as soon as they have fitted the collar and gathered all samples, keeping the immobilization time as short as possible. However, if cold temperatures pose a threat to an anesthetized snow leopard during its recovery, the team may move it to a safer terrain and allow more time for the anesthetic to wear off before waking the cat.

Capture and immobilization of any animal, particularly of an endangered species, is a highly skilled job and cannot be learnt by simply reading a bunch of papers or following field guides. Nevertheless, as scientists make progress, it is important to share the knowledge. We are currently assisting and sharing our experiences with WWF, helping them with their plans to conduct a radio-collaring study on snow leopards in Nepal. The method Örjan Johansson and his team have developed works: Although some level of capture related mortality is generally recorded in various studies worldwide, we haven’t lost a single cat due to capture operations; no cat we’ve collared has died even 3 months after the capture (sadly, one collared cat was killed by a herder a few months later), and there have been no significant complications or injuries to any of the cats in the process.

Map showing cat locations for September 2012. Aylagch (referred to as M9, teal circle) walked north from our study area in the Gobi Gurvan Saikhan National Park across the flat steppe to his new home range in the Nemegt mountains. This information helped convince authorities to protect parts of this steppe between the mountain ranges.

As of today, we are tracking 5 collared cats in our Long-Term Ecological Study in Mongolia. The data we’ve gathered from their collars has helped us understand more about snow leopards and their behaviors and needs, from dietary habits to range sizes. And it has helped local communities to convince the government to establish a Local Protected Area in our study region in the Tost Mountains, including the intervening steppe habitats between Tost and the Gobi Gurvansaikhan National Park where our radio-collared cat dispersed and established his home range.

Unique handicrafts from snow leopard habitat
Many of the items in our online shop, from baby booties to embroidered napkins, feature this little cat icon:

herding communities typically live on less than $2 a day

The icon indicates that the product was handmade by families in snow leopard habitat that participate in our conservation efforts through our program Snow Leopard Enterprises.

Most of these families depend entirely on their herds of livestock for their livelihood. As many of them live on less than $2 a day, the loss of even a single animal can create great financial hardship. The snow leopards that share the mountains and valleys these families live in are predators, and while the typically hunt wild prey species, the cats will sometimes target livestock grazing in their habitat too. To protect their animals, herders sometimes retaliate against snow leopards, threatening the survival of the cats.

community members working with Snow Leopard Enterprises

In order to address this poverty that leads to retaliation against snow leopards, the Snow Leopard Trust has partnered with local herding communities to create Snow Leopard Enterprises. The program provides training and equipment that enables participants to make beautiful handmade items such as baby booties, animal ornaments or rugs from the raw wool of their livestock.

made in snow leopard country

We purchase the finished items at mutually agreed upon prices, and sell the items through our online store.

Read more about Snow Leopard Enterprises and the effect it has here.

Cards, Calendars and More

our 2013 snow leopard calendar

Not all the products in our store feature the little cat icon that indicates they were made in snow leopard habitat. Thanks to the generous support of artist partners, we can also offer items such calendars and cards, t-shirts or water bottles featuring beautiful snow leopard photos and artwork.

These popular products were not produced in snow leopard habitat – but they all help protect snow leopards as well, as all proceeds from their sale go to conservation programs in the five countries the Snow Leopard Trust is active in.

Ready to help save cats? Then go to to our online store and browse our products now!

• 

  Lasya's cub, a few weeks old

  A lot of snow leopards share a birthday: From what we can tell so far, snow leopard mating season is in winter and early spring; and almost all wild cubs are born in June or July, turning the mountains of Central Asia into a nursery each summer.

• Like kittens, snow leopard cubs are small and helpless at birth – they do not open their eyes until they are about 7 days old.

• 

  Comfy in their den

  For about two or three months, newborn cubs will remain in their well-protected den site, shielded away from predators. Their mother will stays close during that time, frequently returning to the den to nurse the cubs.

• A baby snow leopard will start eating solid food at around 2 months old. Most likely, its first taste of anything other than milk will be rare ibex, or blue sheep that mom has brought home from a hunting trip.

• 

  delicious ibex

  When the little cubs are around 3 months old, they start following their mother as she ventures further and further away from the den site to go about her business of hunting for food. Step by step, they learn all the skills it takes to live on their own in their harsh, mountainous home range.

• 

  growing up fast: 11 month-old Mohan

  Young cats disperse from their mother and set out on their own when they’re 19 to 24 months old. Usually, female snow leopards will only have their next litter once the cubs have dispersed.

• Female snow leopards will be ready to have cubs of their own when they are two or three years old – so soon after they leave their family behind, they’ll start their own.

Ariun, captured by a research camera in 2012

First, Ariun, one of the males in our study, and Agnes, a female cat, seem to have overlapped in a very small area (called cluster). Potentially, one of the cats had caught a prey there. The next day, Dagina (previously known as F-8) joined the party – and for 3 full days, the trio remained in the same area before each cat went its separate way. We don’t know at this point what may have caused this unprecedented get-together in the Gobi – but we’ll continue to study the cats to better understand their behavior in the future.

What to Call a Group of Cats?

Agnes, with her two cubs

We didn’t think it would come to this, but it looks like it may be time to coin a phrase to describe a group of snow leopards. A group of tigers is known as an ambush, a group of regular leopards is called a leap. Lions form prides. There is no term for a group of snow leopards though – most likely because it was assumed that they didn’t ever form groups. Maybe we could refer to a cloud of snow leopards? An avalanche? A drift? Perhaps even a banana of snow leopards, as one scientist (who, for understandable reasons, has asked to remain anonymous) has suggested?

What’s your idea? Share it with us in the comments!

snow leopards are even faster!

Each year,  our long-time business partner Dynafit- a German based company specializing in outdoor gear for ambitious ski mountaineers – sponsors an event dedicated to snow leopards. This spring, the company called on ski enthusiasts from around the world to strap on their skis for Snow Leopard Day. In several locations, skiers would do as the cats do and climb steep mountain slopes, with Dynafit pledging to donate a dollar to snow leopard conservation for each vertical meter the skiers managed to climb.

the perfect gift for perfect athletes!

When Dynafit decided to buy felted snow leopard ornaments as a give-away for each participant in Snow Leopard Day, “a few” didn’t even come close to what they had in mind. Rather, they needed a few hundred! No problem! Thanks to our newly introduced quantity discounts, Dynafit got a great deal on their unique give-away – and 800 skiers were rewarded for their superhuman effort with a beautiful snow leopard ornament. For more details on this exciting event, click here. Warning: It’s NOT for the feint of heart!

You don’t have to be a large company to get great deals on our quantity discounts though: Whether you are looking for party favors, conference give-aways or, like in Dynafit’s case, a small reward for an extreme feat of athleticism; we have got you covered. Quantity discounts are available on a wide range of small gift items, from baby plush snow leopards to ornaments. In many cases, great discounts kick in if you buy as few as 5 of a given item. Browse products in our shop to find out where quantity discounts apply – or contact gina@snowleopard.org if you have any questions!