www.chinaview.cn 2009-03-18 12:24:59
LHASA, March 18 (Xinhua) — Farmers in Tibet have found a snow leopard at the northern foot of Mount Qomolangma, also known as Everest, said the local forestry department.
The leopard was spotted near Cangmujian Village, Rongxia Township in Tingri, a county in southern Tibet early this month, said the Tingri County Forestry Department.
According to villagers, the big cat was an adult 120 cm long and about 50 cm tall, and it had a 120 cm tail. But the sex of the animal is unknown.
Villagers trapped the animal in a cave after it killed an adult cow, said the forestry department. The department and the Mount Qomolangma Administration sent workers to investigate. They effectively persuaded the villagers to free the leopard.
Snow leopards live in mountains and plateaus across China, Afghanistan, India and Nepal. The number of surviving wild snow leopards is estimated at 3,500, more than half of which live in the remote high mountains of northwest Xinjiang, Tibet, Qinghai, Gansu and Yunnan in China, said the International Snow Leopard Trust (ISLT).
The animal has rarely been seen in the wild recently and is worth a great deal to poachers.
According to Liu Wulin, a Tibet-based forestry expert, the last capture of a snow leopard, a female one aged five to six, took place in December 2007 in Qijia Village in Gonghe County, Hainan Tibet Autonomous Prefecture of Qinghai Province, northwest China.
Pakistan also has a small snow leopard population in mountainous areas and we come across similar problems of trapping as the one in Tibet, China when the wild cat attacks domestic livestock. During the millennium, climate change will adversely affect the snow leopard habitat and preying on domestic animals which is rare now may become more frequent. Some innovative compensation mechanisms need to be developed to prepare for the worst scenarios of protecting the small and isolated population of snow leopards in range countries. Simultaneously, a well worked out awareness campaign needs to be launched in all the range states to ensure that such flagship species are not lost for ever on planet earth.
I wonder whether this snow leopard could be one of those occurring in the adjoining Sagarmatha National Park (Nepal) on whom I have been working since 2004 (food habits, genetics, impact on the tahr population).
I have been denied the permission to trap and radiotag snow leopards, which is a real pity as their movements cannot be monitored thus.
Sandro Lovari
Posted on a Chinese news site, the Macau Daily Times:
Rare snow leopard found in Tibet
Thursday, 19 March 2009
Farmers in Tibet have found a snow leopard at the northern foot of Mount Qomolangma said the local forestry department.
The leopard was spotted near Cangmujian Village, Rongxia Township in Tingri, a county in southern Tibet early this month, said the Tingri County Forestry Department.
According to villagers, the big cat was an adult 120 cm long and about 50 cm tall, and it had a 120 cm tail. But the sex of the animal is unknown.
Villagers trapped the animal in a cave after it killed an adult cow, said the forestry department. The department and the Mount Qomolangma Administration sent workers to investigate. They effectively persuaded the villagers to free the leopard.
Snow leopards live in mountains and plateaux across China, Afghanistan, India and Nepal. The number of surviving wild snow leopards is estimated at 3,500, more than half of which live in the remote high mountains of northwest Xinjiang, Tibet, Qinghai, Gansu and Yunnan in China, said the International Snow Leopard Trust (ISLT).
The animal has rarely been seen in the wild recently and is worth a great deal to poachers.
According to Liu Wulin, a Tibet-based forestry expert, the last capture of a snow leopard, a female one aged five to six, took place in December 2007 in Qijia Village in Gonghe County, Hainan Tibet Autonomous Prefecture of Qinghai Province, northwest China
http://www.macaudailytimesnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=24374&Itemid=31
Printed from The Times of India
Angry farmers help discover rare snow leopard
18 Mar 2009, 1934 hrs IST, Saibal Dasgupta, TNN
BEIJING: A group of angry farmers trapped a leopard in a cave on the Chinese side of Mount Everest after it killed a cow. This has resulted in the discovery of a rare spice of snow leopard, the forest department in the Tibetan Autonomous region has said.
The big cat was spotted near Cangmujian village in Tingri, a southern Tibet county located along Mount Qomolangma, the Chinese name for Everest, in early March.
The animal is an adult 120 cm long and about 50 cm tall with a 120 cm long tail. But the sex of the animal remains unknown, the official media said. Officials of the Mount Qomolangma Administration have persuaded the villagers to free the leopard, it quoted the forest department as saying.
The last time a snow leopard was captured was in December 2007 at Qijia Village in Gonghe County, Hainan Tibet Autonomous Prefecture of Qinghai Province, northwest China, it quoted Liu Wulin, a Tibet-based forestry expert, as saying.
Reports suggest that snow leopards are sometimes poached on the Nepal side of Himalayas by people trading in its furs and bones. Leopard bones, which are used in some preparations of Traditional Chinese Medicines, are sometimes traded for livestock from neighbouring Tibet, reports say.
The International Snow Leopard Trust estimates that there are 3,500 surviving wild snow leopards with more than half of them in the remote mountains of northwest Xinjiang, Tibet, Qinghai, Gansu and Yunnan in China. They are also found in mountains and plateaux in Afghanistan, India and Nepal.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Health__Science/Earth/Flora__Fauna/articlelist/articleshow/4283214.cms