“Quest for the Snow Leopard” Participants See a Snow Leopard!

The snow leopard’s late winter/early spring mating season offers the best chance of seeing these elusive creatures in the wild. For the past several winters our teams have been privileged to see them. Thus we had high hopes that our eight American and Canadian guests – physically fit and ready to endure freezing temperatures and spartan conditions – would be so lucky. The group snow camped for 10 days between March 9 and 18 this year, in a warmer-than-normal winter that had Rodney worried, as the cats and their prey were staying at the highest elevations. Apart from an overnight visit to Rumbak Village to experience a homestay, the group spent most of each day hiking out from camp and sitting for hours with spotting scopes searching the mountainsides. On the afternoon of March 16th a shepherd rushed into camp with the news that a leopard had made a kill half an hour up the trail. Brian Keating, Head of Conservation Outreach at the Calgary Zoo, wrote:

The magnificent snow leopard was lying quietly above his kill, draped like a fur carpet over the rock. He was so full of meat he could hardly move. As we watched, he dozed off, opening his eyes now and again to check us out. He eventually got up, moving half a meter and flopping down again like a sack of heavy potatoes. He blended in immediately – his camouflage was simply perfect.

Rodney was thrilled, both that the group was able to have this unforgettable experience, and with the solid evidence that the Conservancy’s engagement of local villagers in protecting the cats is working. How better to make the connection between the ability of local people to generate a cash income from eco-tourism and the on-the-ground realities of community-based snow leopard conservation!

You can visit beautiful and remote Ladakh if you join the Snow Leopard Conservancy on one of our special Snow Leopard Treks.

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