Snow Leopard
- Snow Leopard Caught on Camera Trap Photo
- A camera trap set up in the Sast Valley of Afghanistan’s Wakhan Corridor captured a snow leopard striking a curious pose. WCS researchers hope to help create a protected area in this remote region.
- ©WCS
- Snow Leopard Photo
- The snow leopard is a mountain specialist, able to pursue and catch fleet-footed sheep, goats, and other prey down cliff faces and across rocky outcrops.
- Julie Larsen Maher ©WCS
The snow leopard is well adapted to the harsh, mountainous habitats where it makes its home. This beautiful, elusive mammal has the thickest coat of any big cat, and its padded feet function like insulated boots. Snow leopards live a solitary existence and make their dens in rocky caverns or sheltered crevices. These carnivores prowl over steep terrain of cliffs, gullies, and rocky outcrops in search of their preferred prey: mountain goats and sheep, deer, marmots, and small mammals.
Snow leopards have large home ranges, spanning from 50 to more than 2,000 square miles in some areas. They live high on Asian mountain ranges extending from Russia to India. Despite the remoteness of its habitat, this spotted cat, weighing between 55 and 165 pounds, is increasingly susceptible to human-made threats. Only an estimated few thousand snow leopards remain in the wild.
Fast Facts
| Scientific Name | Panthera uncia |
|---|
- Snow leopards advertise their presence by scraping boulders and dirt patches with their claws.
- This acrobatic cat can leap 20 feet or more when pursuing prey.
- Snow leopards use their long, bushy tails to balance themselves while traversing steep mountainsides.
“The snow leopard is a mysterious creature of strength and beauty, whose presence can rarely be proven but whose loss would leave a hole not just in the fragile ecosystems of the great mountain chains of Central Asia, but in our collective imagination and soul.”
– Peter Zahler, Assistant Director of WCS-Asia
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Challenges
Major threats to the snow leopard species include overhunting of the leopard’s prey, such as wild mountain goats and sheep, and the direct poaching of snow leopards for the fur trade. This powerful cat is also hunted is for its bones, which are used in traditional Chinese medicine. Snow leopards and humans are living in closer proximity than ever before, as people settle further into snow leopard habitat. Livestock herders increasingly view the cat as a threat to their livelihood, with many killing snow leopards suspected of preying on their domesticated sheep or goats.
WCS Responds
The snow leopard’s cryptic nature, large home ranges, and small population densities make this cat hard to study. Beginning with Dr. George Schaller's work in Pakistan and Nepal in the 1970s, WCS was a pioneer in snow leopard research and bringing the species’ plight to international attention. Today WCS continues to be a leader in saving these majestic felines. In 2000, WCS co-sponsored an International Snow Leopard Conference in Beijing, where research biologists and government officials from 11 of the cat’s range states shared information and discussed conservation priorities.
WCS has also studied and worked to protect the species in
Mongolia, Kyrgyzstan,
Afghanistan,
Pakistan, and
China. Some of our field projects include creating public education campaigns to stop the purchase of snow leopard pelts, hosting training workshops, and providing ongoing support for government officials and community rangers who aim to stop poachers. WCS also works with local communities to help them preserve snow leopards and their prey species and assists governments in the design and management of protected areas for snow leopards.
WCS Projects
From Central Park to Central Asia, WCS is a world leader in the care and conservation of snow leopards. In 1903, the Bronx Zoo became the first zoo in the Western Hemisphere to exhibit these rare spotted cats. Today, the Bronx and Central Park Zoos are home to the most important collection of snow leopards in North America.
From the Newsroom
A new video narrated by Edward Norton aims to combat the illegal wildlife trade in Iraq and Afghanistan by informing U.S. military personnel about the consequences of buying wildlife products while stationed overseas.
TIME reports on WCS's ongoing work in Afghanistan that has helped protect endangered snow leopards and other wildlife in the conflict-plagued eastern province of Nuristan.
Camera trap photos unveil a healthy population of snow leopards living
in Afghanistan’s Wakhan Corridor. Despite ongoing violent conflict in the
country, WCS conservationists work with local communities to protect the nation's natural heritage.
WCS’s newest exhibit at the Central Park Zoo spotlights the endangered snow leopards of Asia’s great mountain ranges, and the WCS conservation efforts to save them.
With scientific advice from WCS, the government of Afghanistan releases its first-ever list of protected wildlife and plants, which includes snow leopards, wolves, elm trees, and 30 other species.
The Bronx Zoo is giving refuge to a young snow leopard orphan abandoned in Pakistan. The transfer of this endangered cat united the Pakistani government, the U.S. State Department, and WCS in a remarkable conservation effort.