![]() ![]() The family-run reserve has seen a tenfold increase in Bukharan markhor ( Capra falconeri heptneri), a wild goat with emblematic spiral horns, since the conservancy was founded in 2005. One of these success stories is the M–Sayod markhor conservancy in the western Pamirs, whose 35,000 mountainous hectares border northern Afghanistan. In recent years, however, a network of grassroots initiatives have reversed this decline – and that of other species – and Tajikistan now has five community-run conservancies covering a total of 150,000 hectares (580 sq miles), with more in various stages of formation. “If we better protect the snow leopard from poaching,” he said, “then we will raise its ability to adapt to climate change.A group of male Bukharan markhor browsing in the Dashti-Jum reserve in Tajikistan. Snow leopards there have been killed by scabies, it said. In addition, the thawing of permafrost soil has been infecting ungulates with diseases such as scabies and anthrax, which are then passed up the food chain, a WWF study of climate change in Tian Shan found. Although the effects of climate change on the Altai mountains have not been thoroughly studied, if large snowfalls grow more frequent they could prevent animals such as ibex and argali from grazing and deprive snow leopards of their prey, according to Alexey Kokorin, head of the WWF Russia climate and energy programme. Photograph: WWF RussiaĪnother potential danger is climate change, which some local sheep and yak herders say is making the weather here more volatile. In February, WWF Russia scientists and local nature reserves will conduct the first census of snow leopards across Russia. “In most cases it dies as a rule it’s a long and torturous death.”Ī leopard on Kuraisky ridge. “Most snow leopard and musk deer habitats in Siberia coincide, so the irbis gets caught in snares set for musk deer,” Karnaukhov said. Worldwide, an estimated 221-450 snow leopards are killed each year for trade, in retaliation for livestock losses or by non-targeted methods. Rangers often find dozens of snares during expeditions into the park’s Argut river valley and say this is the main threat to snow leopards in Russia. Although that has declined thanks in part to a harsher punishment of up to seven years in prison, the simple snares that are still set for musk deer – whose glands provide a valuable ingredient for traditional medicines in China – frequently catch snow leopards instead. Its depiction is found among the thousands of ancient petroglyphs in the region and in one of the tattoos on the Princess of Ukok, a 2,400-year-old noblewoman preserved in ice in her tomb in the Altai mountains.īut poverty and economic turmoil in the 1990s drove some locals to poach snow leopards for their pelts. The snow leopard is a holy animal for the Altai people, who consider it to be the guardian of the ancestral spirits that they worship, according to Maya Erlinbayeva, an educational specialist at Sailyugem. “He’s like the boss here,” Orgunov said, showing how a leopard claw had scratched four lines into a red stone. Leopards can also be distinguished through DNA analysis of excrement, such as the small dropping that the lead tracker and wolf hunter Valery Orgunov discovered in the snow near leopard prints recently. The lead tracker and wolf hunter Valery Orgunov examines potential snow leopard excrement. In Sailyugem, where winter temperatures can drop below -45C and there are no roads besides a few dirt tracks, rangers drive jeeps and four-wheelers along the rocky frozen rivers at the bottom of each valley and hike up steep mountainsides on horseback or by foot to reach far-flung snow leopard habitats. ![]() The footage the camera traps provide is the closest look yet at a creature that resides in some of the most remote and inaccessible mountains in the world, from the Himalayas to the Tian Shan in Central Asia to the Altai and Sayan ranges in Siberia. About 40 researchers from NGOs including the World Wildlife Fund, national parks, and state wildlife protection authorities are conducting the first ever nationwide snow leopard census, hoping that exact information about its numbers and range will highlight the need for conservation measures such as expanding protected areas. No one knows how many snow leopards there are in Russia, although poaching and illegal snares are thought to have reduced the population to less than 70 out of a global population of at least 4,700. ![]()
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