Chasing Ghosts - Snow Leopards of the Altai Mountains
For centuries, humans have coexisted with wildlife practicing nomadic or semi- nomadic pastoralism, herding sheep and goat flocks, cattle, horses, yaks, and camels. Mongolia is the world’s leading pastoral nation, with rangelands covering 83% of the country’s 1.29 million km2. Due to its low and sparsely distributed human population and their relative economic isolation, Mongolia and Tibet represent the last stronghold in Central Asia for many species of ungulates and carnivores considered rare, endangered, or declining elsewhere in their ranges, including the snow leopard, perhaps the world’s most elusive and charismatic big cat. With an estimated total wild population of 4,500 individuals, snow leopards inhabit mountainous rangelands at elevations of 3-5,000m in the Himalayan and Tibetan Plateau, but as low as 600m in Russia and Mongolia. This species’ habitat is among the least productive of the world’s rangelands due to very low temperatures, high aridity, extreme seasonal conditions, and a harsh climate. Consequently, prey population densities are relatively low.
Often referred to as the ghost cat, the snow leopard is now as endangered as the tiger with perhaps only 4,500 of these elusive big cats now surviving in the wild. The declining population of snow leopards and countless other species is symptomatic of the global destruction of nature.
Industrial civilization has wiped out 60% of the worlds wild animals since 1970.With over 3 million years of evolution behind them, snow leopards represent one of the most secretive and efficient predators on the planet. With massive shoulders and a huge tail for counterbalance, they can bring down prey three times their own weight in the most extreme mountain environments on earth.
Besides its naturally low density, the primary challenges for conservationists are the snow leopards elusive and cryptic behavior, large home range, and dependence on prey populations that are declining. With the depletion of its prey, snow leopards often resort to killing livestock which in turn encourages local herders to resort to retribution killings.
The predominant land uses and source of local livelihoods in most of the snow leopard’s habitat revolve around traditional pastoralism. While relatively few humans reside in snow leopard habitat, their use of the landscape is pervasive, leading to escalating levels of human–leopard conflict, especially within or adjacent to protected areas where resources are more strictly controlled. Since few, if any, of the approximately 100 existing protected areas situated within snow leopard range are free of human influence, its survival hinges upon an uneasy coexistence with subsistence pastoralists and farmers trying to make a living under the same harsh environmental conditions. Thus, innovative and decidedly participatory approaches for engaging pastoralists and communities in snow leopard conservation are critical to ensure the species’ long-term survival.
These images were taken between 2015 and 2020. The Altai Institute is using innovative approaches for engaging communities in snow leopard conservation. Educating locals about the importance of biodiversity, and the benefits a healthy ecosystem can provide to their own lives and needs. This snow leopard data is really important because it gives us a crucial insight into how these cats are behaving, what their movements are, where they’re going and what their habits are.
So that helps us design an approach to how communities here can start to accept snow leopards and adjust their behavior to allow them to thrive in these mountains as they have for thousands of years. Hopefully this work will help them understand how important it is now to conserve wildlife and biodiversity.
Mongolia is now warming at a rate 3 times faster than the rest on the world. Average global warming could exceed 5° by the end of the century. Conserving biodiversity is one of the most effective tools we have in preventing catastrophic ecosystem collapse.
