Information About Snow Leopards

The Snow Leopard: A thumb-nail sketch

Order: Carnivora
Family: Felidae
Scientific Name: Uncia uncia (Schreber, 1775)

Snow leopards are considered medium-sized cats, standing about 24 inches at the shoulder and weighing 60-120 lbs. Snow leopards have an exquisite smoky-gray pelage tinged with yellow and patterned with dark gray, open rosettes and black spots. Superbly adapted for life in steep, high and rocky terrain, they have a well-developed chest, short forelimbs with sizeable paws, long hind limbs, and a thick tail nearly a meter long for balancing. Adaptations for cold include an enlarged nasal cavity, long body hair with a dense, woolly underfur, and a thick tail that can be wrapped around the body.

Endangered – Total numbers crudely estimated at 4,500-7,500. Sparsely distributed across 12 countries in Central Asia: China, Bhutan, Nepal, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Mongolia. Preferred habitat: steep, broken mountains in the alpine and subalpine zone where vegetation is sparse. Home range varies from about 10 square miles in prey-rich habitat to over 800 square miles in parts of Mongolia where prey densities are much lower. The total potential range covers some 1.5 million square miles, but it is unknown how much of that is actually occupied by snow leopards.

The snow leopard’s geographical range is most closely related to two of its large prey species – the blue sheep (bharal) of the Himalaya and Tibet, and the ibex of the Karakorum, Tien Shan, Mongolian and Russian mountain ranges. Opportunistic predator capable of killing prey three times its weight. Small prey such as marmots, pika, hares and game birds probably reduce dependency upon livestock as a source of food. The annual prey consumption of a snow leopard in India’s Hemis National Park is reported to be 5 blue sheep, 9 Tibetan woolly hares, 25 marmots, 5 domestic goats, 1 domestic sheep and 15 birds.

Most active at dawn and dusk – In the wild usually mate between January and March, a time when both sexes mark intensively, leaving sign such as scrapes, feces, urine and scent-spray in prominent locations along their travel routes. Such sign is valuable in determining presence/absence of snow leopards and establishing their relative abundance.

The primary threats to the species are illegal hunting and the sale of pelts, bones and body parts for the fur-trade and traditional Chinese medicine; the depletion of the natural prey base; retribution by herders for depredation of livestock; lack of awareness of the importance of protecting snow leopards among villagers; and habitat degradation along with habitat fragmentation.

The snow leopard’s role in the food web – Snow leopards are one of the top predators in the high mountain food web of Central Asia. The other top predators are the Tibetan wolf, and (more rarely) the endangered dhole (wild dog). http://www.cuon.net/dholes.

Snow leopards help to keep the ecosystem in balance by preying on Himalayan marmot populations. http://www.marmotburrow.ucla.edu/index.html. Marmots are important to the alpine pastureland because their burrowing aerates the soil which, like plowing, helps the grasses grow. The grasses are important to the wild sheep and goats (which are also snow leopard prey) and also to the livestock that mountain people depend upon for their existence. However, marmots have periodic population explosions, and too many marmots, which eat vegetation, degrade the alpine meadows.

By preying on the wild sheep and goats, snow leopards also help to keep the meadows healthy, because like too many marmots, overgrazing by too many ungulates kills the grass and shrubs. If predators are removed, the grassland can disappear, causing the wild ungulates and marmots to disappear, and even the butterflies and other insects that not only pollinate the meadows, but also the barley and potatoes that are the people’s staple diet.

Snow leopards are not only a beautiful symbol of the high mountains of Central Asia, they are an “indicator species.” Where you have good, healthy populations of snow leopards, you can be fairly well assured that the rest of the mountain web of life is in good shape.

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