A comprehensive study of a key mountain predator in Pakistan revealed troubling details about the species' population and long-term viability.

What's happening?

The Snow Leopard Foundation of Pakistan carried out a wide-ranging survey of the big cat's numbers in the mountains of Pakistan. According to Dawn, the researchers reviewed footage from 2010 to 2019 and taken from 1,000 cameras covering a vast area of some 40,000 square kilometers. From 2017 to 2023, the researchers focused on genetics, collecting 1,200 genetic samples. They estimated that between 155 and 167 individual snow leopards remain in Pakistan, per the Snow Leopard Trust.

It's a takeaway cast into stark relief as research published in October in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that the species' low population is causing low genetic diversity too.

According to the SLF's Hussain Ali, the low population is partly the result of increasingly unfavorable weather conditions. "Less snowfall and drought at the mountains force snow leopards either to migrate or move to low-lying areas," he said, per Dawn, noting that this can bring the leopards into dangerous encounters with livestock and sometimes "owners attempt to kill the snow leopard." 

Snow leopards are highly unlikely to attack people, but they will hunt farm animals, and that raises the possibility of retaliatory killing. 

Over the border in India, scat analysis of leopards near rural mountainside villages found that a massive 89 percent of their diets came from domestic livestock. 

Why are snow leopards important?

Snow leopards are extremely important to the mountainous terrain in the dozen countries they inhabit. They are an indicator species, meaning their presence indicates a healthy ecosystem. 

As apex predators, they regulate prey populations and prevent overgrazing by herbivores. To help raise awareness of the cat's vulnerable situation, the United Nations declared October 23 to be International Day of the Snow Leopard.

As the study noted, a warming atmosphere caused by human activity is threatening the animals' habitats. Another key problem may be the poor charting of their natural range. According to the World Wildlife Fund, about 70 percent of that range hasn't been properly explored yet — so there's more to learn, including potential solutions to declining populations.

What can be done to protect snow leopards?

The importance of studies like SLF's to the snow leopard's long-term prospects can scarcely be overstated. While the insights gleaned from this research has been worrying, it may also offer a path forward based on a sound understanding of the leopard's actual numbers and needs. 

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This knowledge can inform public education initiatives to help mitigate dangerous human-wildlife encounters and policies to protect leopard habitats far away from farms and residential communities.

In the long term, it's vital to curb the planet-heating pollution that threatens the leopard's habitat. The responsibility to pivot toward clean, renewable energy falls particularly on higher-income countries, but it's also something in which we can all take part in different ways — from driving electric vehicles to carpooling, using public transportation, and biking.

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