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October 30, 2011


We quote the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, regarding research, dating from days which include, October 30, 2011:

The cameras captured photos of two snow leopards in October as they walked along a ridge in the Altai Mountains along the Russia-Mongolia border.

“To get a picture is really a big deal,” said Dr. James P. Gibbs, a conservation biologist with the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF) in Syracuse, N.Y. “The signs that the species is in this region are definitive but a picture is irrefutable.”

The photos were taken between Oct. 26 and 30 at an altitude of about 4,000 meters at a location called Chikhachyova Ridge in the Altai Republic, a semi-autonomous region in southern Russia. Gibbs said the animals are probably part of a larger population that extends into Mongolia......

“Snow leopards leave clear signs that you see readily if you look for them,” Gibbs said. “You can find scat and places where they scratch trees with their claws. And you see their scrapes, circular depressions made in the gravel that are slightly discolored. They maintain these scent marks. If you see fresh ones, you know snow leopards are in the area.”

The snow leopard population is threatened by poachers who hunt the animals for their distinctive spotted coats.

Gibbs said ESF supplied the high-tech cameras through a $20,000 grant from Panthera, a conservation organization that focuses on saving wild cats. In addition to the snow leopards, the cameras caught images of a rarely seen Pallas cat, also called a manul, a thick-furred feline about the size of a domestic cat.......

The cameras will track snow leopard movements on the ridge throughout the winter and help scientists evaluate the number of animals in the population.

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