NAMCHE, Nepal — Crouched on the edge of an overhang, looking at his prey. Here’s one of the few spectacular photos of a snow leopard living in Nepali forests. The shooting was done by a local photographer, Lhakpa Sonam Sherpa, who managed to immortalize this rare Asian feline near Namche village, in the heart of the Sagarmatha National Park.
Lhakpa Sonam Sherpa caught this beautiful snow leopard some days ago in the forest. A precious sighting, given that last months, this animal seemed to have disappeared over the Nepali mountains.
The first sighting of the leopard goes up about 20 days ago, when a collaborator of the photographer had the news of a tahr killed by a snow leopard in Nyershye. A few days after, some local people informed the researchers working in the Sagarmatha National Park that another tahr was killed in Dambagkok.
Lhakpa and a man of the Snp staff left immediately, at about 3.30 am, to search for the snow leopard. The night time, however, prevented them from seeing anything in the environment. After a long wait, at about 5.30 am, the two finally saw the feline near the carcass of a tahr.
However, the shadows of dawn and the darkness of the forest didn’t allow them to make a photo sufficiently clear.
So Lhakpa moved toward another side, and succeeded in framing and photographing the feline on the prominence of a overhang. This is the spectacular result of his work:
http://www.evk2cnr.org/en/node/1275
Though many people know Nepal, a small map of Nepal with its protected areas and indication of Sagarmatha NP is good reference for such event news. I assume that photographer is not connected with this field, so his pp size photo inclusion in the story would be a high award for all photographers ad could motivate others too beyond biological field.