On April 12th the snow leopard Tsagaan was found dead. The uplinks from his GPS collar reported that he was stationary for four days. That was followed by seven days of radio silence. Orjan and the field team traveled to the site where he had been stationary to investigate and sadly found Tsagaan’s body. We attempted to investigate the cause of death and brought in a veterinarian from Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia to conduct a necropsy.
The veterinarian was taken to the site but noted a small amount of blood that had come from Tsagaan’s nose. This can be a symptom of Anthrax (a common but highly contagious illness found in rural livestock such as those living in the area. For more information on this type of Anthrax please click here) Due to the risk of infection and inadequate safety gear the veterinarian was not able to complete the examination. Based on his location and examination of his body we continue to believe that Tsagaan died from natural causes and was not killed by human action.
Thank you to all who have followed Tsagaan’s updates. As we reported earlier his movements overlapped several times with Tenger. We hope that Tsagaan’s offspring will continue to be a part of the Tost Mountains in the future.
Thank you so much for posting this update. I am sad that he has past but happy to hear that Tsagaan died from natural causes and not by human action. As always thanks for the great work you are doing to help these snow leopards.