{"id":20077604,"date":"2021-08-06T12:30:00","date_gmt":"2021-08-06T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thethirdpole.net\/?p=77604"},"modified":"2021-08-20T12:17:02","modified_gmt":"2021-08-20T06:47:02","slug":"snow-leopard-conservation-handicapped-by-lack-of-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/nature\/snow-leopard-conservation-handicapped-by-lack-of-research\/","title":{"rendered":"Snow leopard conservation handicapped by lack of research"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

More than 70% of snow leopard habitat remains understudied by conservationists, leaving conservation planning handicapped by large information gaps, according to a recent report<\/a> by WWF.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Snow leopards live across the cold and rugged high mountains of Asia, from Pakistan, India, Nepal and Bhutan, through China and Central Asia to Russia and Mongolia. In this landscape spanning approximately 1.8 million square kilometres, there are estimated to be fewer than 6,400<\/a> snow leopards. Another estimate by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) puts the global population between 2,710 and 3,386 adult snow leopards<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"snow<\/div>
Source: IUCN<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Healthy populations of top predators play a crucial role<\/a> in maintaining ecosystem health, including by keeping herbivore populations in check, thereby securing local vegetation. The mountains where snow leopards live also form the headwaters of 20 major river basins<\/a>, a crucial water source for the more than two billion people across 22 countries who live in the basins of these rivers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The WWF report is based on a systematic review of snow leopard research spanning 100 years up to 2020. The idea behind the report was \u201cto figure out whether we have adequate information on snow leopards to determine what the conservation action should be,\u201d said Rishi Sharma, one of the authors and lead of the snow leopard programme at WWF.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The findings point to a lack of information from large portions of the snow leopard\u2019s range. \u201cThis is worrying. This is what conservation organisations and governments should be focusing on,\u201d said Sharma.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The report shows that Nepal and India are leading snow leopard research, followed by China. There are huge research gaps in Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Bhutan, Russia and Pakistan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have tagged snow leopards that have gone to Afghanistan from Pakistan but because there\u2019s no research going on [in Afghanistan], we have no idea at all how many [snow leopards] there are,\u201d said Rab Nawaz, senior director of programmes at WWF-Pakistan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Snow leopard habitat area covered by research by country, 1904-2020<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Range country<\/th>Estimated snow leopard habitat (sq km)<\/th>% of global snow leopard range<\/th>Number of studies<\/th>% of total studies<\/th>Total area covered by research (sq km)<\/th>% of total country range area covered<\/th><\/tr><\/thead>
China<\/td>1,100,000<\/td>61.94<\/td>40<\/td>22<\/td>270,625<\/td>25<\/td><\/tr>
Kyrgyzstan<\/td>105,000<\/td>5.91<\/td>8<\/td>4<\/td>10,850<\/td>10<\/td><\/tr>
Mongolia<\/td>101,000<\/td>5.69<\/td>11<\/td>6<\/td>20,793<\/td>21<\/td><\/tr>
Tajikistan<\/td>100,000<\/td>5.63<\/td>6<\/td>3<\/td>8,042<\/td>8<\/td><\/tr>
Pakistan<\/td>80,000<\/td>4.5<\/td>11<\/td>6<\/td>8,431<\/td>11<\/td><\/tr>
India<\/td>75,000<\/td>4.22<\/td>46<\/td>25<\/td>30,152<\/td>40<\/td><\/tr>
Russia<\/td>60,000<\/td>3.38<\/td>2<\/td>1<\/td>14,783<\/td>25<\/td><\/tr>
Kazakhstan<\/td>50,000<\/td>2.82<\/td>7<\/td>4<\/td>2,036<\/td>4<\/td><\/tr>
Afghanistan<\/td>50,000<\/td>2.82<\/td>2<\/td>1<\/td>1,252<\/td>3<\/td><\/tr>
Nepal<\/td>30,000<\/td>1.69<\/td>42<\/td>23<\/td>22,205<\/td>74<\/td><\/tr>
Bhutan<\/td>15,000<\/td>0.84<\/td>1<\/td>1<\/td>1,730<\/td>12<\/td><\/tr>
Uzbekistan<\/td>10,000<\/td>0.56<\/td>9<\/td>5<\/td>3,920<\/td>39<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody>
Total<\/td>1,776,000<\/td>100<\/td>185<\/td>100<\/td>394,819<\/td>100<\/td><\/tr><\/tfoot><\/table>
Source: Sharma R. K. and Singh R. 2020. Over 100 Years of Snow Leopard Research: A Spatially Explicit Review of the State of Knowledge in the Snow Leopard Range. WWF, Gland, Switzerland.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Inaccessible mountain terrain a challenge for researchers<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Nawaz said that research on snow leopards in Pakistan is \u201cvery concentrated in very few areas\u201d like Chitral National Park in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Valleys on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border that are very likely home to snow leopards have not been studied because they are difficult to access.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tough terrain and harsh climate of much snow leopard habitat makes research particularly demanding, a primary reason why vast sections of snow leopard habitat remain uncharted territory for researchers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAccess to some of these areas is difficult and even if you manage [to access them], the logistical challenges of doing research come into play,\u201d Rishi Sharma said. He compared his research experiences with tigers in central India with his work on snow leopards. \u201cIn central India, we could take a four-wheeler and cover substantial areas and install around 25-30 camera traps [in a single day]. In Spiti or Ladakh [in the north Indian Himalayas] or any other snow leopard range, even visiting three sites in a day is difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"snow<\/div>
Distribution of research across snow leopard range (Source: \u00a9 Sharma R. K. and Singh R. 2020. Over 100 Years of Snow Leopard Research: A Spatially Explicit Review of the State of Knowledge in the Snow Leopard Range. WWF, Gland, Switzerland)<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The report also points out that less than 3% of snow leopard range has robust data on snow leopard abundance, and that multi-year research is being carried out in only four research hotspots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is however space for hope. \u201cThe one positive thing I see is that there has been a huge increase in research in the last decade,\u201d said Justine Shanti Alexander, regional ecologist at the Snow Leopard Trust<\/a> and executive director of the Snow Leopard Network<\/a>, who provided inputs for the WWF report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n