The snow leopard, one of the most elusive animals in the world and on the endangered list, may soon have its mystery unravelled in Ladakh’s Hemis National Park. The environment ministry has cleared a collaboration between the Jammu and Kashmir government, Wildlife Institute of India (WII) and the Snow Leopard Conservancy — a California-based private US conservation agency — for the study of this mystery animal. The plan only needs the green signal of the defence ministry. The elusive nature of the snow leopard makes it difficult even to put a definite figure to its population. Worldwide, there may be anything between 4,500 to 7,350 snow leopards. About 1,500 of them live in India. Still, the habitat this animal prefers has made it impossible for scientists to gather much knowledge about its habits. But not anymore. This time, US and Indian researchers plan to use the technology of Global Positioning System to find out more about the foraging routine and the social behaviour of the animal. The idea is to trap six of these cats, fit them with GPS collars, and record their positions regularly. The data will come every 15 minutes or at least once a day. The plan also involves using remotely triggered cameras. Body hair of the animals will also be collected and sent to an Indian laboratory for DNA tests. ‘‘This is a very important study,’’ said A J T Johnsingh, an award-winning mamologist at the Wildlife Institute of India, who will be coordinating from the WII side. ‘‘It’s a very timid animal. They have a vast habitat, which we don’t know about. So we also don’t know what is happening to the animal,’’ he added. So far, very few studies have been done on snow leopards. Only two of these successfully employed radio tracking on a sustained basis. The first was a four-year study done in 1980s by SLC’s Rodney Jackson in Nepal. The other was by WII’s Raghu Chundawat, who tracked one cat in 1990. This time, Jackson will be a coordinator of the Ladakh study. Speaking to The Sunday Express, Snow Leopard Conservancy Education director Darla Hillard said: ‘‘The study done in the ’80s is a seminal study on snow leopard. Since then, the whole technology has changed. So we expect a lot more.’’ One of the special areas of the study in Ladakh would be the animal-human conflict. Explains Johnsingh: ‘‘The snow leopard lives at a height of 10,000-11,000 feet in the Himalayas. Wherever there is a good population of blue sheep and Ibex, there is a population of these cats. But once they kill the sheep and the goats, they are targeted by the local populace.’’ But apart from the retributive killing by the livestock owners, the snow leopard is also killed by poachers. The bones are used in traditional Chinese medicine. Besides, encroachment of habitat and a decreasing natural prey base also pose a threat to the animal. The researchers hope the study will answer questions about the prey selection factors, which lead the cats to target livestock. The study also aims to provide data for the conservation of the cats. The study, a 3-5 year project, will cost an estimated $62,500 each year. Research is expected to continue for the entire year but will focus on December-June period.
